Checking my mailbox on the way over to the ghetto coffee shop I heard downstairs neighbors talking. Girl says to guy “What is the matter with your butt? You always have a butt.” She was talking in a little-girl kinda voice, as best I could tell. The dude said something but I could not distinguish his words.
Nice to know butts are a topic of discussion between these two. I know next to nothing about them. I remember when the guy moved in. He had some trouble with a delivery guy, not on account of the delivery but the fact that he (the dude who just moved in) had no money with which to pay the delivery guy. The dude asked me if I knew where the nearest ATM was. I directed him to Salami’s, as this place (the ghetto coffee shop) was then known.
What I should have done — and I promptly regretted not doing this — was hand the dude a $20 bill and tell him my apartment number. I would have made a joke of it: “If I don’t see twenty bucks by 5pm tomorrow you’re gettin’ your knees chopped off. Oh, and welcome to the neighborhood.”
Had I done something like that I think I would have made a lasting friend in the building. Oh well.
I think these two talking about his problematic butt are the same two who I heard screaming at each other, I mean absolute screaming about what I could not distinguish. The words were swallowed by the enveloping anger, which screeched such that I sensed both parties sensed their lack of basis for whatever it was they claimed enraged them. Anger is a sign of weakness, I think.
Whatever their dispute started with it ended with the most unlikely ending. The dude yelled “THERE AREN’T ANY MOUNTAINS IN THE PANHANDLE!”
If that is what they were screaming about — geographical particulars of the Florida panhandle (I assume he was referring to the non-mountainous Florida panhandle) — then I don’t much care what else they were arguing about. It could not have mattered or had any merit.
His pronouncement and/or correction regarding the lack of mountains in the panhandle seemed to have ended the screaming, though.
I am not certain now if those two screamers were the same individuals as today’s butt problem duo. Does not really matter, does it…
Taking a chance with this ghetto coffee shop jaunt. Chance that I will miss my first ever attempt at same-day delivery from Amazon. I ordered a new hard drive and 3 bags of coffee around 11am, 90 minutes before the deadline for same day delivery. Now the order is said to be on its way. Bah, I’m going home. No desire to be at this shit hole.
…
It is the next day. Another Bakeway visit = another receipt, which itself = another step toward the $100 cash I got last week for scanning my receipts and sending them to an app. I guess it is an app where they make general stats on what people are buying, and where. I never thought much about the why or the what, I just habitually send them 12 receipts a week, usually by the 2nd or 3rd day of the week. I put that $100 toward a new 8TB hard drive and 2 40oz bags of Starbucks coffee. I ordered those items around 11am yesterday. They arrived a few hours later. I think the last time I tried same day delivery on anything was in 1998 or 1999, when I ordered an $85 musicology tome about Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, by Paul Rapoport. That order was from BN.com, and should have come to me at the Time & Life Building, whence I worked long hard hours. Hah… I left at 5pm on the dot, and the delivery guy from BN.com got there around 5:10. He was not allowed to leave it with a co-worker, so I guess I got it the next day. I don’t remember when I actually got it but I remember the same-day promise ringing hollow.
Not this time. Had that 8TB drive sucking up my 1+TB of Sony a77 DSLR pictures within minutes of its arrival.
…
I left my name at the base of a large tree today. This was to up the ante from last time, when I left but a scrap of paper from my daily USPS cremation ritual. That scrap of paper, per my cremation æsthetic, had no identifying information or realistic way to trace it back to me. Now I don’t care if it does, given the unlikelihood of any human creature inspecting this unassuming blip of whiteness at the base of a formidable tree. It is hiding in plain sight, to be sure, as are DETEX WATCHCLOCK STATIONS and other minor joys.
…
Unisom has done me well the last two nights. I did not think so at first. My arc of sleep is no less disrupted than ever. In fact last night I had an electrical jolt for the ages. It felt muddied and muted by the sleeping pill. First serious seismic belch in a while. But in the end I sleep some straight and steady period, and wake feeling like I actually slept well, even if it should not seem as if I should have.
…
At the Walgreen’s today I noticed a woman who I recognize as a cashier at the C-Town that is dead to me. I don’t know her for anything except her presence at the register there, and I believe I once saw her working at the Western Beef which used to be nearby but closed recently. I always thought she was cool for the way she took her job as a cashier so seriously, and did it well.
Today I saw her with her young son, who I would guess is maybe 5 years old. He said “Mommy can I have this?” She looked over and said “No, that has penis in it.”
I did a silent, muted double take. In her mind she probably thought she said “peanuts.” But I know what I heard. The kid was pointing at a Snicker’s bar. I will read the ingredients closely next time I consider buying that or any other confection. I will not eat anything with penis in it. Period.
It reminded me of the “NICE PENIS!” guy. On an airplane from somewhere to somewhere else it had become a quiet but insistent joke among the passengers that the flight attendants were handing out inordinate quantities of peanuts. It was like they were pulling these little bags of peanuts from a bigger bottomless bag of bags of peanuts. Any time I finished a bag a new one appeared. Neighboring passengers would say the same.
The plane landed and as 100 or so people funneled through the front door an elderly passenger stopped and yelled “NICE PENIS!” I mean, that is what everyone on the plane thought he said. Every head turned, faces slightly aghast, toward the source of this inappropriate outburst.
At the end of the second that it took all those heads to turn all realized that the individual had actually shouted “NICE PEANUTS!” as a tribute to the airline’s abundant peanut treats.
I need a beer, but I will abstain. I don’t know why. I really does not matter if I drink or not. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to see, no hearts to break. I might plan ahead and get the vodak tonight, for Thursday’s degenerate night reveries.
