The List


Liberal/homosexual/lesbian/feminist agendaI have made a list. It is The List. Like OCD Santa, I am checking it compulsively.

It is T minus 18 days before I am on a metal death tube to the United States. I am now regarded as a short timer by my expat peers, deemed lucky to be heading to the land of SUVs and drive thru windows. If you are reading this and you think I am an idiot for joyfully exaggerating time spent in the U.S., then you have not been overseas long enough.

The List is made up of mostly edible things; food is to The List what Jews were to Schindler’s List. Every time I add a food item to The List, I go for a run. I figure that if I lose it now, I can gain it them. Completely illogical? Words don’t even make sense? Three words: I don’t care. I guess that’s technically four words.

The List is growing.

There are cheesesteaks on The List; real pizza, Italian hoagies, Miller High Life, Dill pickles, meatballs not made from pork, and sandwiches from Jewish delis. Other fatty foods are racing through my head like thoroughbreds…OK, moseying through my head like giant sloths wearing blood pressure cuffs and dragging EKG machines. But they’re there. They’re there.

Despite food’s prominence, The List does include people and places I want to visit. They are book stores, my mom, my grandmom, my parent’s kitchen. There is the Jersey Shore (the place, not the show), outside seafood restaurants, and the boardwalk. There are three bars: The Langhorne Hotel, The Squirrel Cage, and Fuel & Fuddle. For the most part, alcohol is not on the list, for I will know what do once I get there.

Supermarkets. The List not only features supermarkets, but specific aisles and sections of supermarkets. There will be a two-hour deli visit, a bitter-sweet time in the bright and sunny fruit and vegetable section, a pilgrimage to the snacks and chips aisle, and a visit to the cereal section. When I round that corner and see more than Muesli and Fitness, I will cry. If The List tells me to, then I might go to the medicine aisle, just to reminisce about what it was like to browse for medicine in the supermarket. But The List has not told me to do this yet.

There are things I need to see, not places or people, just things. On The List are an air conditioner, a dryer, and a dog not riding regally in a plaid bag. There is a window screen, and a pizza delivery man (he’s not a man when he brings me pizza, he’s a thing).

There are a few things on The List that I want to get and bring back with me: NyQuil, condoms (made to fit men, not celery), socks, and deodorant.

On the list, there is one sentence. That sentence is something I have been yearning eleven months to hear someone say. I hear it in my dreams and it is a sentence you never hear any synonym variation of in any language in the Czech Republic. It goes like this:

“Of course we can do that for you, sir, no problem at all.”

And when I hear it, I am going to lie down on the floor and lick the meatballs I am carrying around in my pocket. That is, if I don’t pass out from pure shock first.

What would you add to Your List?

  1. #1 by Julia on July 8, 2013 - 2:56 pm

    I really hope that # 2 and # 3 on your dry erase board list don’t go together.

    • #2 by Damien Galeone on July 8, 2013 - 3:30 pm

      And what if they do? And what if they do?

      • #3 by Julia on July 8, 2013 - 4:24 pm

        Then shouldn’t they negate the condoms you put on the list, too ?

        Hahaha.

  2. #4 by Andy on July 8, 2013 - 5:09 pm

    Haha, oh man, the condom remark brings back amusing and embarrassing memories. Never again will I take my brand for granted!

    Peanut butter, Nutty-Bars, sushi, salads-which-are-not-entirely-made-of-tomatoes-and-cucumbers, burgers, pizza, and ICE CUBES (sweet, glorious ice-cubes!!). Revel in it, my friend. Revel.

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