I'm Shipping Up to Boston. Hold the phone, is that London Calling?

I can't take it here.
I'm getting out of this town.
It's time to go now.

"But I gotta get out

I gotta break it out now

Before the final crack of dawn

So we gotta make the most of our one night together 

When it's over you know

We'll both be so alone 

Like a bat out of hell

I'll be gone when the morning comes.

When the night is over

Like a bat out of hell I'll be gone, gone, gone."

Sawyer and I have begun the arduous task of packing our belongings into my navy-blue Kelty Trekker 4200 backpack. It's the same one Abbey bought me for my birthday two years ago when we had high hopes of spending the summer backpacking through Yosemite. Reminders like this are exactly the reason I need to get away. Well, I had a plan to get out of this town. Rumor has it that both the Golden Gate and Bay Bridge have collapsed into the waters below. The fates have really been testing my patience lately. 

Early one morning I walked down my block to the local Fred Meyer supermarket. Flakes of ash and debris still gently snowed down across the streets. When I can't sleep, I lay in bed trying to imagine what those ashes had originally been. A birdhouse? A picture frame? A cookbook? A pillow? Perhaps even a person? 

In my back pocket, I had a list of essentials Sawyer and I would need before venturing out into the opposite direction of our early pioneers and founders. Take that, Lewis and Clark, we're going against the grain. At Fred Meyer's, the store had shown the tell-tale signs of being heavily looted. Cars in the parking lot sat rusting and empty with slashed, airless tires and funneled gas. Multicolored graffiti from local gangs and wannabe thugs created murals along the crumbling cinder block walls. Storefront windows were knocked out. The broken glass sparkled and shined in the hazy orange sunlight like ice-cycles slowly melting on a warm February day. 

When I got into the store, it was eerily quiet. Desolate. Normally when you enter into a Safeway, Trader Joe's, Bristol Farms or what have you, you're never allowed a moment of silence. Carts and customers scoot past you. Fragmented conversations drift in and out of your ears. Intercoms blare messages about some blue light special on frozen peas. Sappy 90s pop-rock plays in the background. Your ears pick up that old, familiar song, but the lyrics seem to escape your tongue. 

"Cause I am barley breathing

And I can't find the air

Don't know who I'm kidding

Imagining you care

And I could stand her waiting

A fool for another day 

I don't suppose it's worth the price...

worth the... ha rah duh rah day

The bah rah dah dah dum

But I'm thinking it over anyway"

I pushed the rickety red cart up and down each aisle. Most everything had already been picked over. That didn't stop me from doing my share of ransacking.
On the list: Tampons. Dry kibble. Granola bars. Canned food. Water. Matches. Glow sticks. Instant coffee. Peanuts. Rice. Trail mix. Cookies for dogs. Cookies for humans.
It must look like I have the diet of an 8-year-old. What good would lettuce or apples serve me when I can't refrigerate them? Isn't that just a metaphor for life, with or without proper storage, we're all bound to spoil sooner or later.