It could have been profound, the way he said it as if it were both the answer he always gave to such questions of commodity, and a brand new thought, sparked from the flint of nothing.
“Yes, because this, this is a moment in time.”
I took his credit card from him and did not, in fact, start him a tab, because, yes, it’s a moment in time, but he was coked out of his mind. His eyes hadn’t blinked in 42 seconds, his shirt was increasingly unbuttoned, and I wouldn’t be fooled into serving him another beer.
Sunday is such a butt of a day. Eighty-seven percent of people are in a bad mood because they have to work the next day after some time off. The other percents are mostly brunch FOMO, and some other people who are probably fine, but an eighty-seven percent chance of bad mood clouds is a miserable forecast.
When one of my friends connects to something you say, she says, “Oh, I get that.” Not like, I have that thing too, but like, I get that. Which I love about her, so I have started doing it too because I have no actual thoughts of my own. For a year or two I was saying, “absolutely” as an entire response to things. Same with “totally.” I’ve been on a “perfect” kick lately, but I feel it’s time to change it up again. I hear “gnar” is making a comeback.
Most bartenders I know will tell you they are socially awkward. There is a bit of a crutch to limp on by being able to walk away immediately, consequence-free, when faced with discomfort. There is also endless material to absorb, other people to rely on to be phrase-pioneers, indicators of coolness everywhere, at all times. So my spongy tendencies are in good company.
On Sundays, I used to do my lesson plans for the week. It would take me about four hours: two to panic-search the Internet for ideas that always seemed better than mine, one to stare at a blank computer screen, forty minutes to make sure I didn’t already teach this same thing before, and twenty minutes to actually type in the words that would relieve me of dread. Plenty of dread came from the actual climate of my classroom, too, but this grey and gloomy Sunday brain-space everyone else walks around with? I get that.
It’s drudgingly lonely to parachute your optimism for someone else. The more the elses, the bigger the strain on your chute, and suddenly a thirteen percent chance of sun is none. Which is why Sundays, even if I spend them happy, even if Monday is my day off, even if. Sundays will always be a butt.
His hair was sticking out in at least four contrasting directions, and when I handed him the slip to sign, his gaze went somewhere left of my ear.
“You’re looking really good in that body,” he told me, or my ear, which made me think of my skin like an outfit and how it would or wouldn’t fit on certain days, and which day was today, and I’m almost completely positive my face showed my reaction to thinking about a skin-suit more than my reaction to him, but they were pretty close in nature anyway. I said nothing and turned to look at something, anything else.