I guess it’s about the happy medium. That space between melancholy and elation. What are the ingredients for this? Well, therein lies the issue.

(image courtesy of http://www.everythingesteban.com)

I stand here, bent over the counter, writing. Not sure what I’m going to call this piece…I’m just writing. This act alone (albeit one of possible defiance?) takes me, millimeter by millimeter, away from Melancholy on the journey towards Elation.

“Can I get $20 on 1?”

The voice yanks me back into the matrix around me.

The two guys, brothers, always come in for a large coffee and a large cappuccino. Every morning. Which reminds me, “Shit! I forgot to fill the ice,” I think to myself. And like deja vu, it reminds me of yesterday when they came in. Large coffee. Large cappuccino. No ice. I grabbed the key to the outside ice chest and went outside. Opening the ice chest, I pull out the requisite three bags of ice. These are little bits of…well, I guess I can’t quite call it forgetfulness, because if you don’t really care about the thing in the first place..carelessness? No, that sounds reckless. No, perhaps ‘couldn’t-care-less-ness?’

The lottery lady (that’s what I call her; she’s actually one of the mail ladies) just won $100. Oy. It bugs me — that I’m the one behind this counter, and somehow on the other side of this counter lies a species who obviously either makes much more money than I do, or they live in an alternate reality in which there are no bills. Whichever it is —

Whoo! You can tell it’s Sunday morning when people come in still reeking of Saturday night. So badly I might get inebriated on vapors alone.

More lottery people. It’s so hard carrying on this conversation with you with all these —

Ah, that was Jules. Well, Julie. I think if we lived anywhere else but here, she’d be a Jules. She’s cool. I don’t think of it as an interruption when I actually enjoy conversing with the individual.

Anyway, I was worried about having done that lottery pay out and not having enough money left in the till for the rest of my shift — remember, lottery lady? Won $100? Well, no worries. She’s put it all back in my till. Be right back.

****

Okay, I’m back. Going to have to have a smoke here soon. I know, yeah, I did quit, but then I started again. Funny thing.

Grumpy’s Pest Control

509.251.5555

I happened to spy this card up where we keep the cigarettes and thought, “It’s probably called that  because people are grumpy when they call this guy…”

Kinda sucks when you finish a cigarette and want to light another one, if for no other reason than to be able to somehow justify not going back in, back behind that counter, no, please no, no more, I can’t take it —

Frequencies…CERN said in 2011 that neutrinos can travel faster than the speed of light. They called for –

(Sorry. Customer.)

..they called for other scientists and particle physicists –

(Just a sec…)

..for other physicists to verify their findings and they found that –

(Darn it. Just a second.)