Eat a large breakfast - big glass of orange juice, omelette, hash browns, English muffin with raspberry jam. Wonderful place for breakfast because there's no muzak - just the din of clanging dishes and silverware. Furrow your eyebrows at your book when you see the word "Welstanshauung" (later I remember it means worldview). The water tastes a little too chlorinated. The chlorine is covering something up... probably poison.
At the bookstore. That guy in a suit doesn't look like he belongs here with us underemployed, T-shirted nothings. We're slippery and society's radar doesn't pick up on us. The people on the news are confused by us, our dispassion and our Chuck Taylor's. But guys like this are easy. He's probably going to buy an expensive coffee and a magazine like Business 2.0 or something. I'm just here to pass time and, since I'll eventually give in to temptation (because I am a very weak person), buy that George Saunders book. This guy is probably following me. He's one of them.
There's a fellow wearing a white and red shirt with 3/4 length sleeves - the kind you wear under a baseball jersey - building a grotesque wall of Harry Potter crap, in front of the children's section. All of these bright colors and bold-faced short words make this store feel like a daycare. This causes the "special interest" DVDs with lingeried women on the cover to make me want to cry. Why would you ever have such a thing in a daycare? Let these kids grow up to think they'll build bridges and cure diseases - don't let them know they'll probably be working in Cinemaxian softcore adult film like most people.
The girl at the register is asking too many questions. I wish I had cash so she couldn't get so intimate with my name and dirty financial details. She knows I'm poor, but she probably wrote the number and expiration date down and is itching for her lunch break so she can ring up a huge bill on Amazon. And really - what can I do about it? She's laughing at me right now. On the inside. Where's her nametag? I need to report this to the manager. I hope the staff stocked Glamour next to The New Yorker to be self-consciously ridiculous. If so, then I really like these people. I want to be their friend and screw things up in small, perverse ways. They probably hate everything as much as I do.
