Some days in the life of. . .

Yesterday, as usual, I get to work about ten minutes early and sit down on a folding chair in the back room to read. Just a bit a quiet time for myself before I have to serve people stuff they don't really need at prices they don't really want to pay just so they can look trendy to all the people out there who don't know them. (For those who are curious, at this current store most people don't look at customers the same way I do. Most of the people I work with actually think they are providing a service that is needed in this world and not just some useless luxury that helps to define how excessive this nation has become. Since I'm in the minority in this store and the stores I've subbed at, I assume I'm in the minority around the world. Just thought you'd like to know that most of the people serving you aren't thinking "Asshole" every time they hand you a drink.) I like to clear my mind with fiction.

I flipped the book open and read the entire first paragraph when Assistant Manager #1, who is soon to leave for a month before becoming a Shift Supervisor at some other store, turned to me and said, "You know how I get Chinese food sometimes." This clearly was not a question, but she waited for a response.

"Yeah," I said, wanting to throw my book at her.

"You know how I collect fortunes."

I didn't know this but I said, "Yeah," anyway.

"Well, I got this fortune cookie the other day and, well, do you know what it said?" She turned away to look at what ever was happening on the computer screen.

I rolled my eyes. How could I possible know what it said? Was I there the other day? Could I peer into her mind and pick out meaningless statements mass produced in Michigan? "No," I said, "I don't know what it said."

"Well, let me tell you," she said, still facing the computers. "I'll tell you what it said. I'll just tell you." She finally turned back to me. "It said 'God gave us two faces: the one we show in public and the one we keep for ourselves.'"

In my mind, I added the words "in bed" to the end of the fortune and chuckled silently. I didn't say a word, just looked at her lizard skin and blinked three or four times.

"I'm not like that," she said.

"Okay," I said, but didn't believe her. Everyone is different with certain people than they are with other people or when alone. Some are less different than others, but we all change some.

"I mean it, I'm not. I don't do that."

"Okay.

"I think. . . I don't even know what they were thinking when they wrote that one."

"Well," I said, "they probably mean that people show themselves in different ways around different peop--"

"I don't do that," she interrupted me. "I'm the same. I'm exactly the same here as I am at home."

"Okay," I said, but thought, Bullshit. I doubt you kiss your daughters ass like you do the DMs or the customers. And I really doubt you're the same person when you forget to take your Prozac.

"I just don't know how they could put something like that on a fortune cookie. I mean, it's not true. Not about me. Maybe about other people, but it's not true about me. Not at all true."

She kept going on like this. I was afraid she'd never stop so when she paused to take a breath I said, "It's funny how it starts with God, isn't it? The fortune, I mean."

Her breath got longer and her eyes narrowed, "Yeah, it is. I got this other fortune the other day and it said, 'God has found each of us our perfect part in His world." I took it out and gave it to [JCBG] and told her I got her fortune. She read it and said, 'Maybe He meant it for you.'"

She laughed from the belly. I laughed to cover up desire to run.

---

Last week, even though it feels more like a month ago, I got my hair cut. If I weren't the lazy person I am, I would have gotten it cut several months ago, but my desire to create a groove in the couch and spend less than $15 on a hair cut, it just happened recently. My hair was long, but not loooong; it was no where near my shoulders. But I got it cut short, very short. Like only two inches on the top so I can have something to "play with," if you call running a comb through your hair three time in the morning "play with."

Saturday, I went to Cow Town to drop of the first shipment of stuff to my parent's house, so no one at work got to see me without my tresses.

Monday, just before noon, I zipped into the parking lot after the long drive back from Cow Town. Work started at noon. I pulled myself out of the car and shuffled to the front door. BHHC sat at a table just outside the door on her lunch break.

"[ticknart], you got you hair cut," she said.

"All of them, actually."

"Your hair looks good."

"Thanks," I said, opening the door and heading in.

FLIG stood at the counter, bored, but waiting for the next customer. "You got your hair cut, [ticknart]."

"Yup, all of 'em." Which became my automatic response to the statement about a hair cut in 10th grade because it's what one of my favorite teachers always said it, along with "Pie are not squared, pie are round."

"Well," she said, "it looks real good."

"Thanks," I said, hitailing it to the back room for some alone time.

Fifteen minutes after I clocked on, JCBG walked in in her civvies looked at me, did a double-take and stepped closer to me.

"You got your hair cut, [ticknart], didn't you?" she asked.

"Each and every one," I said.

"Doesn't it look good?" BHHC asked JCBG.

"It does," said JCBG.

"Thanks," I mumbled. "Do you want a drink?"

JCBG told me what she wanted.

"I mean," said BHHC, "I like guys with long hair, just look at my boyfriend, but your short hair looks good."

I stared to steam milk so I didn't have to listen to any more.

Ever since then, whenever I see someone who hasn't yet seen me with short hair (except for DFFB, since he's the only other straight guy in the store) has told me how good, or great, my hair looks. The thing that strikes me as odd is how everyone says they hair looks good. When other people in the store have gotten new hair styles or a new hair color I hear people say "You look great." not "Your hair looks good."

I suppose I'm just being my normal paranoid self.

---

People at the store don't want me to move away.

Most seem to grasp the fact that I don't actually make enough money to make a positive change in my situation, but they don't understand (or don't want to understand) that why I'm moving.

Even a couple of customers have said that they're sad to hear I'm leaving, which made me reevaluate my harsh judgment of customers for a minute. Of course, right after that they added that I screw up their drink less than anyone else and they hate having to wait for a second drink.

ASGG said, joking, that I can move in with him and his boyfriend. He said that all I'd have to do is clean the bathroom, kitchen, and play video games with him and live there rent free. One of those customers from the previous paragraph heard him reiterate this and said I should take it up. I told her that once he showed me the uniform I'd have to wear, I turned him down. ASGG laughed. I laughed. The customer gave me a strange look; I don't think she knew ASGG is gay.

GIESW made a claim that she wants to move to Cow Town too. She only says this, though, because she's depressed that guy she dumped New Years Day convinced her to stay with him at least through the end of January and two weeks later he dumped her and then two weeks after that he started dating some big breasted blonde who has two kids. GIESW always pulls a dark cloud around by a leash, but now it's grown and is shooting forks of lightening at her head. She'd be really unhappy in Cow Town, because even though she hates being out in the world, she's a city-girl at heart.

The Manager still hasn't called down to the 'Bucks in Cow Town to arrange my transfer and she's gone all week at some meeting that all the managers in the US are at. But it's all okay. Sunday, I spoke with The Manager in Cow Town and gave her all my pertinent information, so she knows to start scheduling me the week of the 14th.

Assistant Manager #1 wants me to go to a party that's for GGWB's promotion and a good-bye to #1, who's stepping down to Shift Supervisor, and good-bye to JFCG, who is transferring to a store closer to her house and school, and good-bye to me. Unfortunately, the party is scheduled for the night of the day I had planned to finish moving the bulk of my stuff back to Cow Town. The plan was to not come back to Cow City until Tuesday, when I have class. I told #1 last week that I would go to a good-bye party if it was on a day that I could go. So, she schedules it for the day I leave and then gets really angry at me for saying that I won't be able to make it because I don't want to drive 100ish miles to Cow Town, drop my stuff off, and then drive 100ish miles back to Cow City to eat a meal that night. Am I being unreasonable about this? I know I've been unreasonable about store parties in the past, so I told her if she could move it to Friday, I'd be there, but she said no.

Am I being unreasonable this time?

---

So, Hunter S. Thompson is dead. I'm sure those of you who enjoyed his stuff already know that he shot himself on Sunday. That's not the way I expected him to go. I always expected a legacy Hells Angels, whose father was put in the spotlight in Thompson's book Hell's Angels, to go to Colorado and take Thompson out, but never suicide.

I wasn't as inspired by Thompson's writing as other people. Sure, I thought its style and his story telling great, but I guess I could never really immerse myself in the drinking and drug stuff that he sometimes wrote about. But if, someday, someone compares me to Thompson I'll get the chance to yell at the world "NO ONE IS AS GOOD AS HUNTER S. THOMPSON!" while inwardly smiling.

I fell like I should break out some mescaline and hit the road to Vegas in this man's honor.

---

I remember hearing someone, a long time ago, say, "You're only as old as you feel."

If that's true, then I'm 63 years old, have had three heart attacks in the past four years, just got nailed in a harsh divorce, and am looking at the age we get retirement supplements from Social Security about to raise.