I have been essentially miserable for months. This is truly different from my usual misery. Migraine city. Or just headache city. One after another. Can't figure out of they're
migraine or
tension headaches or
sinus headaches or
rebound headaches.
My patience is truly thin today, I feel intolerant of all.
Last week I saw someone with a brand new, shiny Lexus SUV. Stuck to the bottom was a plastic bag that had melted onto the tailpipe. I felt embarrassed as it looked like a turd stuck on an animal's asshole. I think the SUV wanted to rub its back end on the ground to get the itchy bag off its tailpipe.
Two weeks ago I went into a Dunkin' Donuts near my job. I had a gift card given to me and was feeling gluttonous; this is not uncommon these days. Of course, there were two young men who happened to be beautiful working there. I felt the fat on my body hanging over as I scanned their sleek physiques. After taking my order for three sandwiches and six doughnuts - one doughnut was for someone else, the rest for me, but I pretended that the whole order was for my co-workers, a puzzled look on my face as I tried to recall what in the world did so-and-so order?, darn-it, I should have written that down! - a fashionable looking man with a fedora walked in to order a bacon, egg, and cheese on a croissant and a coffee with cream, no sugar. I could only imagine how gross his breath would smell later.
He was funny to me because he was in a fucking American Dunkin' Donuts and pronounced "croissant" as kwah-SAH. He looked like a heavy drinker because his face was both doughy and severe. The Indian woman who took his order apparently disapproved of his drinking because she glared at him the whole time. I glanced at him surreptitiously so that I could use a five-syllable word in my blog.
He was given his sandwich before my three and looked in the bag. He asked for a ketchup packets. Without looking at him, the woman gave him a packet. He asked for more, saying he liked a lot of ketchup. Again, without looking at him, she gave him one packet. Here, he paused, and I could feel the tension mounting.
"I told you I like a lot of ketchup," he said. "Please give me at least four packets."
"No," the woman responded. "Only two for a sandwich."
I felt my own insides tightening. How dare she!? What was up with the condiment limits? Were we in a war? All of a sudden I wanted three for each of my sandwiches. I wanted nine packets.
"Ma'am," he said, and I could see that he was restraining the desire to raise his voice. "Please give me two more ketchups. I will pay for them."
At this point it was like the woman became unhinged. She began screaming that there was a limit of one ketchup per sandwich, she had already gone over the limit in giving him two, and they would run out if they gave everyone all the ketchup packets they ever wanted, couldn't he be satisfied with what he got!?
The man glared at her as if he had made a decision, took his sandwich, and left.
Now, I'm thinking because of this, the young man making my sandwich had gotten nervous, because he made mistakes on my order and gave me the wrong sandwiches. I had to wait while three more sandwiches were made. As I was getting my correct order and checking to make sure they were correct (I hate cheese), Fedora walked back into the shop with two bottles of ketchup in the squeeze bottles.
"Here you go, lady! Here's some ketchup for you!"
Fedora walked up to the counter and proceeded to shoot the red across onto all the doughnuts and muffins and bagels until they were bloodied with ketchup. I think it was Heinz brand, too, so it was thick and clinging. It took about 30 seconds, this pastry massacre.
While it was happening, I thought of how fortunate I was to have already gotten my cream doughnuts.
