A Decent Proposal.

Ms. Demi Moore...Why do I love this movie?

We gonna write a little bit from our heart right now, as we just put in the Spice Girls' Spice World CD...telling u we don't be playing on tha music tip, it's serious.  But before we get into some personal talk...we have another classic story that just occurred this afternoon.  There's no doubt in our mind, body, and soul, that my life is one that needs to be made into a book, and a movie.  We have just so much material that would...have to add TV show to that list, wonder why these things happen to us, but...here we go.

This afternoon, we was up North getting away for a little bit.  I had no idea that thrift shopping was so serious.  Made a stop at the Out of The Closet store in Fort Lauderdale, and it was starting to get a little pack. Starting to think that some of the folks in there might have been stylists looking for the next deal for a photo shoot.  Found a few things and headed back to the Magic City.  I needed to make a stop 2 get a hair cut over in Little Haiti, but before that tha kid needed to pull out some money.  So I go to this "store front" looking Citibank ATM Drive-Up kisok on like 108th and Biscayne Blvd., or something like that.  When I got there two cars were ahead of me.  I'm just laughing as I'm listening to the radio because this song, "Closer" by Goapele is on.  All we can think about is this one guy I used to work with over in Coral Gables, and how all day all he kept singing was the chorus to that song...."Closer to my dream!!"  This kiddo had me rolling hard that day.  It's a deep song really.  It's soulful, but when u listen to the lyrics and think about all that u have to go through...I'll talk about that later.

So a car pulls out, and this small SUV is ahead of us.  It looks like a woman is behind the wheel as she reaches to her left to punch or tap tha screen.  After a few short moments past by, she finally completes her transaction and pulls away.  I then take my ride out of the Park Place position and scoot a few feet forward to get some chulupas out the machine.  I put my car back in Park, grab my blue ATM card and turn to my left to hit the screen, except something wasn't quite right.  "Oh man, this person didn't close out their account.", was my initial thought and then....I looked and glanced at the remaining balance on the open account, and no lie a small chill crept through my body..."Can this be right???"  I look again and all I could see was...

$30,000.00

What?!!!

Let me repeat...

$30,000.00

This person had 30 thousand of them LeBrons in her account, and she forgot to close out her account, meaning, Austino Galaxia, the future star himself, has total access like a Ponzi Scheme artist in Russia!  Now a few things flashed in my mind.  One was to take a picture of it...I'm been around a lot of money in our life, we've seen like $10,000 just laying around in one setting, in nothing but cold hard body cash.  When u staring at that much mulah u have to look at it as just simply a green piece of paper.  If not, believe me, u'll go crazy and start to make phone calls to Sahara, Diamond and Cinnamon Spice and tell them to call their friends, have them wear the cleanest pair of panties they got cuz rainy season is about to be in full bloom tonight!!

Another thought was that there was a car behind me, so I gotta act kind of normal.  So after all this going through our mind in the longest 10 seconds of our life...we simply hit the red button on the bottom right and closed out her account, and slid my card in to get into the real big bucks..."Yeah, I got $5.34 in my account and Miami Subs got them 50 cent wings on Sundays too, I'ma kill 'em!!"  (I actually had more money in tha bank than that!)...I think the lowest amount of money we've ever had in the bank down here in Miami was like several years ago....

Somehow, someway after paying some bills and I'm sure after making that famous Fashion vs. Food decision...What?  Like u don't know what I mean...if u live by urself and like to shop u're probably laughing right now, cuz u know EXACTLY what I'm talking about!!  The Fashion vs. Food is a real-life reality moment when say u have I don't know $100 in your bank, and u come across a sale at either one of or several of ur favorite retail stores.  And after falling prey to temptation and entering the store in the first place, u go in, and u'll be Johnny Brown (Who is that anyway?!) if they have every thing u want for a price that comes along only Once-in-a-Elvis!!  U feel ur hand begin to twitch, and u say to urself, "U're just gonna look...just look!"...hold on, I'm feeling Destiny's Child right now, who remembers this 'hood classic remix?!! That's the joint right there!...Alright, back to the story...

So u trying to contain urself, and then u wonder...see that's where u mess up right there.  Whenever u begin to Stevie Wonder, u gonna make that what I call, "Ain't Nothing but a try" move, where u shyly look to see who's watching u, and then when u see nobody is, u either slowly slip off ur shoe to try on a nice pair of heels, or if u're a guy, well u can be a guy and do that, but for the sake of the story...if u're a guy u try on a shirt right there in the middle of the store, not even caring who's watching!  Bare chest and all sometimes!!  I know somebody knows where I'm coming from on this!  Next thing you know it, a salesperson comes over and first asks u for help, which doesn't present a difficult challenge...But then they hit u with the words u didn't want to hear..."Today is the last day of the sale."  Noooooo!!!  They are not fighting fair in this battle...then u look at the items which fit u perfectly (Of course they do, duh!!!)...and then the salesperson tries to finish u off like a game of Street Fighter and utters..."Are u gonna buy them?"

(Pause)

This is the moment where Fashion vs. Food is at its apex...the person in the middle of the battle then does gives the ultimate sign of a recovering shopaholic...the addict then slightly turn their head to the right at a 45 degree angle, and slightly tilts his...I mean...her... head up to the ceiling while giving a shy pout of the lips.  It's the most common sign of a addict, because it's at this point that the decision of Fashion vs. Food is going on in the addicts mind.  U think about how much money u have in the bank and in ur pocket ($100 for this example)...but then u consider how much food u have at the crib..."Alright, I got enough for the next 3 days."  The next step is thinking about when the next time u're gonna get paid..."Shucks, I get paid in 7 days though."

The 3rd step is the trickest because it's where u begin to bargain with ur own self, I call this stage "Christie's Shoe Drop", named after the famous auction house.  "Ok, I got food for the next 3 days, but if I split the sandwich and only eat half of it one day, I can save the other half for the next, so that's a two in 1 deal.  So in actuality I have food for like 6 days.  Then I'm gonna go to Pollo Tropical and get the cheapest item, so I can get that coupon at the bottom for a buy one 1/2 chicken, get one free...and just eat one of the beans one day, and I can survive a whole day by eating a Xtra-small side of black beans, I'll even add more water to them to make them last..."  So as u can see, this is why u take Calculus in school.  If they used these type of story problems maybe I wouldn't have been so interested in making that hour my coveted magazine session for the day!!

The final step is the actual final conclusion after ur ghetto math and all.  "I'll take them!"  U go to the counter, see the "all sales are final" sign but choose to ignore it and as u're giving the salesperson ur debit card at the register, u're already figuring out how many glasses of water it's gonna take for u to feel full for the night!  Ha, Ha!!

So I think all that drama led me to once having something like $11 and some change to get through a whole week.  U talking about pressure...Heat/Celtics Game 7, Ha!!  That ain't nuthin'....that week I did everything to tee.  I mean, we were eating exact portions cuz we had the whole week planned and any slip up!  Eating the meat from Chicken Thighs one meal....the next meal eating the bones from the Chicken Thighs!!  Getting some trail mix and eating only half ur usual portion.  And then, oh, oh, let's not even talk about driving.  Yes, I still had to travel, and u talking about somebody taking the quickest route possible.  I think one time I rode through a house over in Little Havana!  Yes, through it...I looked on Mapquest, them jokers gave me some bogus route that would have me beggin' like Keith Sweat by the end of the week, so I hit that dot to give me the quickest route, it said "hit tha A1A...take 8th Street exit..." and then it hit me with, "Make a left through Jesus' house and destination will be on the right!"  I didn't think twice cuz, I mean,  if saving some gas money meant I needed to bust through a church...Then so be it!!  I simply grabbed a bowl to use as a helmet, and it was on!!

Safe to say, it was a looong 7 days.  But we thank God we made it through, but u don't wanna make a habit of that!  So we withdrew our money, and just drove away this afternoon like, what if we just said give me $400 out of her account.  Nobody would know.  It's amazing what goes through ur head when u have the real opportunity to make a moral dent in life.  And with the cost of shopping, and cell phone bills (Why does Florida have an added tax??) and with us living out our high maintenance life of girls, gab, and grub...maybe I should of went digital crowbar on the machine.

Oh well...u sometimes have to give up $30,000 to one day make $300,000, right?...Right??  One day for sure...but for tonight...

I think I'm about 2 cry!!!

Austino Galaxia.