And moves in with the needlessly unpleasant saleslady.
"I love you," he tells her.
"So what?" she answers. "I could almost care."
His job search progresses poorly.
At interviews, he gives prospective employers made-up names, uses cartoon characters as references, and insists that, if hired, he needs the solstice off in order to summon Aphrodite from out of the spirit realm so that she can join the saleslady and him for a threesome.
She kicks him out.
"You're crazy," she tells him. She throws away his gifts and changes the locks.
All day at the department store, she is abrasive and nasty.
She goes to a sub shop for lunch and berates the girl there for assembling her sandwich in exactly the manner she requested.
"Go back to Pakistan!" she says, and leaves without paying.
In the afternoon, she gets caught between floors in a malfunctioning elevator.
She is visited there by the Holy Spirit.
When she emerges, hours later, she is a changed woman, courteous and kind to everyone she meets.
They let her go anyway.
Meanwhile, the deceptive and demented former weatherman has reinvented himself as a self-help guru.
His is a multi-million dollar empire based on doubletalk and preposterous claptrap. There are waiting lists and limousines.
At one of his seminars, he meets a sixteen year old part-time Sonic carhop named Amber.
It is instant love for him, and he begins to shower her with attention and gifts.
He is convinced that Amber is the reincarnation of Lily Langtry, the famous "Jersey Lily."
He worships her.
He believes that she is the Perfect Human Being.
She likes that he buys her all sorts of expensive shit.
She tells her gf that he is "not so bad, even though he's older than fuck."
Her famous beau is thirty-one years old, adored around most of the world, and cannot distinguish Nirvana from Nivea cream.
St. Valentine's Day arrives.
He goes to the department store to get some nice things for Amber.
The saleswoman, a different one, is abrupt and insulting.
He buys more than he had intended to, trying to cheer her up,
And she makes a nice commission.
Amber isn't pleased with her gifts,
Which include a riding lawn mower, several bowling balls, and a South American themed patio set.
She decides that the gravy train has gone off the rails for good, and so she calls her gf to come and pick her up.
He never sees her again.
In the asylum, he meets a woman named Brenda, who is a kleptomaniac.
She...
Yes, she....
Steals his heart.
They are released and move in together.
He discovers that she makes uncommonly delicious soups,
And is kind to strays.
He keeps her lawn tidy with his riding mower, the only thing he has left from his days as a pop guru.
In the evenings, they sit on Brenda's couch together,
The one she curb picked and re-covered.
They watch "Cash Cab."
She is better at guessing the answers than he is, but he doesn't seem to mind.
One night he takes her hand and says, "It will always be sunny as long as we are together."
It is kind of a sweetly dopey thing to say, but she smiles and decides to go with it.
"Sure, babe," she says.
Why not?
_________
