But to my dismay I soon realized
why this memory had been spurned.
It was of eating a stale club sandwich
whose mayonnaise had turned!

I took it right back for a refund,
but the Chinese clerk he protested.
He asked for proof, by way of receipt
for the memory I’d injested.

I searched my pockets to no avail.
I checked again, but again failed!
Nowhere was it to be found.

I scanned the scene,
and checked in-between
my sneaker and the ground.

But it was gone.
Goodbye, so long!
Sayonara, it turned to vapors.
Somehow somewhere,
vanished into the air.
“I’ll see you in the funny papers.”

I tried my best
to prove in jest
that I was the one who had bought it.
“Aha!” I voiced,
“The rye bread was slightly moist,
like someone had coughed on it.”

“And the pickles, they stank
like something quite rank
and the ham—the ham was like rubber.
The turkey was raw
and the cheese was so blah,
like crusty, stretched-thin whale blubber.”

But the clerk didn’t buy it,
wouldn’t even try it.
He just smiled and shook his head “No.”
Without the receipt
I could have shit to eat
and he wouldn’t mind it at all if I’d go.

As I stormed out into the rain
the image haunted my brain:
That clerk’s grin hung in breathless fixation.

It was clear I’d been played—
the memory cleverly overlaid
over my memory of the receipt’s location!

Damn you, Walgreens. You can keep your lousy four dollars.