bouncy_ball spiffy i put a quarter into the little machine and out rolled a bouncy ball. a smooth, orange little ball with red speckles all over it. i then looked around the store i was in for some inspiration for a name for my new bouncy ball. i name everything. someone walked past me with some fake cheese called "imitation pasteurized proccessed cheese food" in their cart. i thought it was funny so i named it cheese ball. i held the ball out in front of me, released my grip, and watched gravity pull it down to the floor. as soon as it made contact with the ground it bounced right back up to my hand. i caught it. i repeated this act about a hundred times, right there in the store in front of the bouncy ball machine. i love constant repetition. as i was practicing the art of repetition, something suddenly went horribly wrong. something sad, something tragic, something... unrepetitive: my bouncy ball did not bounce back up to my hand. my bouncy ball suddenly acquired a mind of its own. it veered off to the left, then the right, then the left, then the right -- bouncing merrily away. i raced after my bouncy ball as it bounced along the bread aisle, i chased after my bouncy ball as it hopped down the dairy section, and i hurried through the cheap and really unexciting toy aisle full of worthless toys that no one ever bought, as my bouncy ball led me through it. at one point it stopped bouncing. it began to roll. it rolled under a shelf and stopped rolling just out of my reach. it happened to stop rolling in the gardening section so i quickly found a shovel. i used the long handle of the shovel to roll my bouncy ball out of its hiding place. unfortunatly i rolled it a bit too hard and it ran right into someones foot, bounced off of their shoe, and traveled on through the store. as i chased after it again i accidently collided with a small child. he fell to the ground and looked at me like he was about to cry. luckily the parents weren't paying attention. in an attempt to keep him quiet i grabbed a candy bar off the shelf, opened it, and gave it to him. while he was preoccupied with his sticky chocolate mess, and his parents were deciding on what brand of peanut butter to buy, i ran off to continue to pursue the escaped little ball. as my bouncy ball bounced through the store, it decided to take a break and hitch i ride from a passing cart. it landed in the cart of a really scary looking old lady. she didn't notice it. i was afraid to ask her for it back, so i followed her around the store. every time she wasn't looking, i sneakily tried to grab the ball. but i kept just missing it, as i quickly turned away from her cart, whenever i saw her attention returning to it. people kept looking at me funny. i gave each one of these rude people a giant grin. they would walk away looking confused. finaly i lost my patience and just grabbed the ball while the lady was looking and ran. at last, i had it -- but not for long. the lady who's cart my ball had taken refuge in screamed as i had grabbed my ball. some big, tall guy thought i was stealing her purse or something like that and tackeled me. i think he broke a rib. i was never really quite sure. but just as he did so my bouncy ball went flying out of my hand. i squirmed out from under the three hundred or so pounds that was in top of me and tried to continue to follow my bouncy ball. but since i had been squished by this giant man, i lost sight of it just long enough for it to take a turn down some unknown aisle. now it was truley lost. i then looked at the old lady, screamed "cheese ball theif!" and then ran through the store franticly searching for my ball. after a while i gave in to the thought that maybe this searching was futile. i just couldn't give up yet though. i sat down on a lawn chair that was on display and thought. i thought and thought and thought. finaly i came up with a plan. i went to the office supplies and got some paper, then to the lousy toy section to get some crayons. i made twenty or so "lost ball" signs. i then went back to the office supplies, got some tape, and then put up my signs around the store. people started giving me that funny look again. this time whenever they did so i taped i sign to them. i wandered about the store for a few hours, but no one ever approached me about my lost ball. these people were all very hostile really. i don't see what was so "lutanic" (as one person put it) about "i'm looking for cheese ball." eventually i was able to get a few people to act as a search party. i had to pay them though. they kept laughing at me -- it was uncomfortable. sadly, after hours of searching the store began to close. my search party abandoned me, and my signs all somehow found their way to the trash. an employee finaly kicked me out of the store and forbid me to ever come back. i never saw cheese ball again. 040608 what's it to you? who go blather from