An Ode

How shall I update? Let me count the ways.

I shall update about the man in the white paper hat, a butcher. Oh how he sternly, how resolutely he worked, jaw firmly set, eyes focused straight ahead upon the task at hand, until the side of lamb he was weighing dropped wetly onto the floor and went -splat- Shall I speak of how his face changed, and how he quickly dropped down to pick the skinless lamb up and return it to its place on the meat hook? Shall I mention the hurried glance left, then right, to see if he had been seen? And is it possible to describe the nervous, amusing, lopsided smile he greeted me with when he realized I had been watching him, and laughing? Ah, the grocery store.

Or shall I update about Litho, the gas station attendant, who knew not what flavors his slurpees were. Truth be told, it was midnight, and in the haze of sleep deprivation and late-night hours, the light blue slurpee looks alot like the dark blue slurpee, and the both of them look like close cousins of the teal slurpee. HF and I asked him what they were. He wasn't sure. He went into the back to ask someone else and returned without an answer. He looked at the machine. Then he took out three cups and poured an inch of each blue into each of them respectively. He offered them to us. The teal one tasted like lemon-scented handsoap. The light blue one was an unknown, and it tasted like lemon-scented conditioner. The dark blue one tasted like lemon scented blue berries that had been left overnight in the radioactive core of a nuclear power plant, so we ordered one glass with two straws. My tongue was blue for a day and a half.

posted by Abez @ 8/21/2005 09:50:00 AM