Thank God for the plastic wrap on pastries at convenience stores.
I'm on my way in to work this morning, fighting the rain and the traffic and the idiots whose sole purpose in life is to gum up the roadways so the rest of us can't use them. As I near my office, it occurs to me that all I have in my wallet is a a ten-dollar bill. A quick check of the pants pocket reveals no change whatsoever. Ditto for a hasty search of the changeholder in the car. Obviously my change-snorking stepson has, yet again, siphoned all my silver.
Change is important because it buys me caffeine. See, I hate coffee. Hate hate hate it. When I was six years old, my dad tried to get me to drink it by saying it would put hair on my chest. Well, at six, that's not a big inducement. No six-year-old wants to be known as "the hairy kid" around the neighborhood. In college, my roommate was addicted to coffee. I mean, his addiction was severe. It was nothing for him to go through three or four pots a day by himself. He had a coffee maker in the room, and he would wake up at five a.m. to start his first pot. He would drink his last pot around eight p.m. I woke up smelling that crap, and went to sleep smelling that crap.
So I never learned to like coffee. I need caffeine to get me going in the mornings, though, so that means a trip to the drink machine at the office every morning. A Diet Pepsi will boost me through the morning in something other than a sleep-induced walking coma.
Our drink machine only takes change and dollar bills, though. Not fives. And definitely not tens.
On mornings such as this, I whip into the convenience store located, conveniently enough, just a couple of blocks from my office. I can run in, buy a Coke or a pastry or something, and have change and dollar bills for the drink machine. Which is what I did this morning.
I amble into the store and decide to get a Coke and a pre-packaged cream cheese and blueberry Danish. I don't need a cream cheese and blueberry Danish, but I want it. My blood sugar is low, because I wasn't able to eat my Mayfield Turtle Tracks ice cream last night. The wife and I went shopping for a new leash for the dog I didn't want.
So I mosey up to the counter with my selections. Diet Coke and cream cheese and blueberry Danish. I figure they'll cancel each other out. Anyway, the counter guy greets me cheerfully. "Good morning! How are you?"
I respond politely. I have no reason not to; all is well with the world. I'm gonna get my caffeine, get some change, and head into work.
The register at this convenience store is integrated with one of those scanner-type dealies. The clerk holds my Diet Coke up to the scanner thing that reads the bar code. "Beep!" it says. The cost of the Diet Coke pops up on the screen.
Now the clerk holds my cream cheese and blueberry Danish up to the scanner thing. In retrospect, I should have recognized the wanton lust that played upon his face as he touched the plastic wrap; that was a warning of what was to come (no pun intended, as you'll soon see).
The guy holds the Danish at an angle parallel to the scanner. In other words, the laser beam or photon emitter or Kreskin brain wave or whatever it is that reads the bar code is actually shooting above the bar code. If he'd hold the Danish perpendicular to the scanner thing, it would be able to scan the bar code. But he's not doing that. I start to mention this, then stop in amazement.
The guy is massaging my Danish. He's trying to make it appear as though he's just working to get it to scan properly, but that's not what he's doing. He's stroking the plastic, gently kneading the golden brown flaky crust underneath. As I watch, a small portion of the icing gets squeezed seductively against the pastry.
The worst part is, my Danish is actually enjoying this. I can tell. You would think it would show some loyalty to me, since I'm the one that picked it out of the rack and was allowing it to fulfill the ultimate destiny of a Danish. But noooo. It lay there happily, rubbing itself against the lightly probing fingers, seeking to create as much friction as it could with the plastic. I half expected to see some cream cheese dribble out of the end of the Danish, after which it would grab a pack of cigarettes from the display on the counter and light up. The brazen hussy.
Fortunately, the cream cheese cuckoldry ends before the climax; the clerk, in his ecstacy, accidentally moved my Danish (my Danish!) too close to the scanner, which dutifully said "Beep!" and flashed the price. The guy froze for a second; he realized he'd screwed up (again, no pun intended). There was no longer any reason for him to fondle my pastry.
Without looking at me, he put my Diet Coke and the Danish into a bag. I said "Thank you" in a tone that clearly implied "If you even think about doing so much as looking at the blueberry filling I'm gonna rip out your esophagus and use it for a urine funnel." To give him credit, he seemed to know he'd crossed the line.
I know what you're thinking, so I'll answer your question. Yes, I ate the Danish. She made a mistake, she knew it, but there was no reason to end our relationship over it. To let her know that I forgave her, I gently licked her blueberry filling before consuming her.
The things I have to endure to get a little caffeine in the mornings.
(c) 2012 John Puckett
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