Literary Bluntness 2

The Working Fair

Today was a good day. I finished my shift and went over to the Edina Starbucks where I needed to pick up tips from a different shift last week. I hoped the whole bus ride over that the tips would be good but (Edina aside) knew they would not. My disappointment over the lousy six dollars was almost imperceptable because I had seen the bulging sack hanging on one of the coat racks when I walked to the back with the store manager coming in. "LOST AND FOUND." Everyone was busy working so no one noticed me digging through it. On my way out the manager asked if I would come back for another couple of shifts next week.

"Absolutely," I said with a smile and asked if they would by chance be okay with marking out an iced venti of whole milk for me for the ride home. They gave it to me for free.

The pawn shop gave me fifty for the motorola, seventy-five for the Miami ink commemorative motorola, and one-fifty for the Louie keychain. Avi seems to recognize me now.

So I came home with twenty four ounces of milk for the baby and a pack of actual Pampers (not generic). Tomorrow we'll go to the doctor for a check-up and then to the zoo, maybe.

Literary Bluntness

Tonight another freak stayed on until close at Starbucks. Not a drunk, this time, but some sort of schizophrenic who seemed hostile toward us. He didn't make any aggressive motions or threaten us but just stood outside by the mailbox for a half hour, staring in the window at us and mumbling to himself. After we walked out to the car from the side door he moved around as if to follow us and it was upsetting. And all the way on the drive home I cursed the way he made me feel unsafe and paranoid and judgemental, wondering if I shouldn't move us all home to Olivia or some gated community where everyone has to "apply" to live and interact and where I wouldn't encounter situations like these.

He then took the form of the hitch-hiker on The Twilight Zone, showing up at every corner, beating me to the next block or peering at me from the back seat with his creepy sunglasses on. Or a ridiculously fast running fiend like the Terminator made of liquid metal who could run as fast as a driving car. He became every villain I've ever known, Norman Bates standing above my bed when I was eight, Jason's mother stalking the camp counsellors, Mrs. Danvers in the burning house, Regan backbending down the stairs like a crab; someone whose mission it was to chase me down and get me. He was everywhere and everything horrible.

And I thought of what I would do if he followed me home or if I saw him on the street during day light hours with my kids, or some other alarming situation but then I remembered that the moment anyone questionable takes one step toward my family I become Beatrix Kiddo.

So, what to do about this? I don't like giving people power over my well being. Maybe I can just offer him the largest possible java chip frappucino JUST to stay the fuck away from me. But he'll be in, wanting more, to be sure. No one can stop at just one java chip frappucino. Today it's a frappucino, tomorrow it'll be a sirena espresso machine and a hander at knifepoint.