While munching on a blueberry muffin during break time at work this morning, I realized that the one of the aspects of my job that I love is seeing the diverse group of people walk through the door. We have some truly interesting characters, and there isn't just one type of person that visits our location. It's right off of the highway, so we get quite a bit of travelers, and it is also in a part of town that is a break between money and not so much...
At the time I was on my break, there was a teenage girl in line, men and women of different ethnicities, backgrounds, and from what I could see, job options. I thought to myself, "what I wouldn't give to know what was going through their heads"...the woman at the counter was probably chastising herself for not requesting non-fat milk…or for getting the drink in the first place…the man glaring at the receipt while walking out the door was wishing he would have finished college so that he could have a job which would actually enable him to afford the latte he gets each morning, regardless…and Pete, who is chatting with girl barista Charlie, is wishing he was twenty years younger and that she wasn’t engaged – and is surprised by how interested he actually sounds in her talk of school and classes and the like…and Thomas…oh Thomas…he would chat with the wooden table that he sits at if there were no one else in the café…and he would explain to the table his take on school reform, his wife’s woes of his jobless situation, and finally he would remind Mr. Table to never lose hope in God, followed by the phrase, “I don’t want to keep you,” which would be followed by a ten minute explanation of the documentary he saw on the history channel last night, involving a tribe and a sacrifice and a midget. All the while, Phil would be working on the crossword puzzles in both the New York Times and the Tulsa World, as he does each mid morning of the week…
This is the color of my job…and I love it. I am there to listen, feed their addiction, and give them a bit of respite from the otherwise monotony of their day. And again, I love it.
Tonight I will be going to McNellie’s Public House for their $3 burger night. A girl that I work with has invited me every Wednesday for the past month, and I have yet to accept…but I don’t have to work tonight and my grandma is out of the hospital, so I said yes! It is a good thing that I am fasting from dietary restrictions, because in the normal life of Meredith, I don’t eat beef. But tonight, bring on the cow and sweet potato fries. She said a group of her friends go every Wednesday night…and she is an initiator, which is good for me, because I am not. Those are the kind of people I need in my life right now. Supposedly, my friend Lorelei from work is going as well, which makes me happy, because I really, really like Lorelei. She is sarcastic, which means she gets my sarcasm, and isn’t easily offended. That makes things easy for me. And fun too. I hope they serve Margaritas, because I want one.
*names have been change in order to protect identity
I read that in memoirs and I always wanted to be able to say it.
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