It's Not Me, It's Me

I go to the place downstairs and order an omelette on multigrain toast. Sounds easy enough no? The omelette part is pre-made on premises and quite lovely as omelettes go.

The girl says what would you like on it?

I say a bit of butter, salt & pepper.

She does the toast. She butters, salts and peppers the toast and starts to wrap it up.

I say 'you forgot the omelette'. She looks at me like I'm strange and says 'that's why I asked you what you wanted on it'. Huh? What? But this isn't the first time I've been to the food Twilight Zone so I should know better.

She just continues to blankly stare at me as though I need to further explain what I want.

I say 'can you put the omelette on it please?' She says 'you didn't say you wanted an omelette' and I say to the girl next to me in line 'anyone you know order toast with salt & pepper' and she laughs 'uh no'. I say 'can I have the omelette on the toast please?'

By now Surly the counter girl is no doubt a bit embarrassed and slaps the omelette on the toast and fairly pitches it at me.

How long is appropriate to allow management to replace this defective's batteries? An hour? A day? A month? Or should I just rethink my diet?

Homelessly Devoted To You

One of my big hearted co-workers had over a period of a few weeks, chatted up, befriended and becoffeed one of the many local homeless guys, one with a dog.

It's been bitterly cold what with the winter and the blasts of cold air and such so she did a little housekeeping at home and found some perfectly good blankets that she no longer needed. She figured she'd give them to him and thereby help him and the poor puppy to stay nice and warm. Plus as she pointed out, you can't always just give them money, you've got to do something for them.

She told him about the blankets and her worry for him. He was moved, the dog wagged his tail and looked sad, she felt compassionate and he agreed to receive her the very next day at the same time, same spot for the handover and out.

The next morning, she bundled the blankies up and trundled her way through the train to a seat. She even took the earliest possible train knowing it'd be less crowded so as few commuters as required would be bothered by her trying to manoeuvre the bulky package of hope and warmth. Seeing this unwieldy arrangement at her desk, she filled me in on what it was and seemed so happy to give a little something back.

The next day at work, she didn't seem as buoyant as I would have expected following the performance of such a grand deed.

That fucker! He wasn't there. He stood me up! Can you believe that? I had to carry those goddamned blankets back home again and I almost missed my fucking train for him. Urunghh, can you fucking believe that?

Well, you can't really expect to rely on a homeless guy to be there when you need him can you? I mean, isn't that why he is homeless to begin with? You know -- sort of not so reliable with taking his meds, paying his rent, that kind of thing.

And I love the fact that you're willing to be charitable but only if it works with your train schedule!

Oh, you're terrible! He has a dog you know, I just thought he'd be where he said he'd be.

I shouldn't probably tell you but...that's his third dog. And he used to have a snake too.

You're kidding? Anyway, I drove in today and brought the blankets back. I'll go see if I can find him tonight after work and give them to him.

And if you don't find him?

I'm pitching those motherfuckers right out the window of the car and I hope they hit and kill someone.