#7 Free waffles and fairies

The words "free" and "waffles" put together are a wonderful combination, if I do say so myself. So when I was fixing one of the tenants' sink and she brought it up I jumped up so fast I hit my head on the bottom. I let out a few expletives.

       "Sir, are you alright?" She asked, concernedly. 

        "Yeah, I'm fine," I answered. "You said something about free waffles?" 

         She let out a laugh and answered, "Yeah tomorrow, it's all you can eat at the Karnival Diner until 11;00. You should stop by. Eddie."

        "Yeah, I just might," I said while I was screwing the drain pipe back in. Of course, "I just might" meant "you bet your ass I'll be there, I'll be there waiting in line for it to open if I don't have any fixing to do." I was excited. 

   The next day came before I knew it and I was up bright and early. Karnival Diner opened at 9 but I was up at 7. I was as eager as my daughter used to be on Christmas morning. I didn't even bother getting dressed, I just put on my jumpsuit and headed out. The line was huge, it looked like it could've been the line to an actual carnival ride. I was playing on my phone until I eavesdropped on three high school boys having an interesting conversation. 

   "Shut up, Paul you must be on that stuff." The leader of the pack said. 

    "I told you what I saw, if you don't want to believe me, don't; but I know what I seen," The pimple faced kid who must've been Paul replied. 

    "Wait, wait, wait....what you say happened again? I just want to make sure I heard it right," the third and chubby one asked, jokingly. The Paul kid just looked at the ground. "Fairies? Are you (bleep) kidding me? You want us to believe that you went to pick your little brother up and saw the janitor building a house for fairies??" He raised his hands in the air and yelled to the sky, "fairies!" 

    "Christian, calm down. You sound like Mr. Crocker," the leader said. 

     "It's fairies, PJ. The world has the right to know." Christian answered

      PJ was getting irritated. You could tell the chubby one was that one friend who annoyed his other friends because he didn't know when or how to quit. "Just drop it, Christian." 

    Paul interjected, "Yeah Christian, drop it!" 

    Christian said under his breath, "Paul what did your mom tell you about smoking that fairy dust?" PJ cracked up and I chuckled. Paul looked back at me angrily with his hands in a tight fist. That made me chuckle some more. He took his free waffle ticket from the doorman and angrily walked inside with his friends.
"Fairies?" I said under my breath. "Kids, these days." I got my ticket and enjoyed some tasty waffles. When you're old and have seen the things I have, and survived the things I've survived every delicacy is great. 

    

#4 The Party

Well this should be interesting, I thought to myself as I found my classiest “definitely a rich-guy” suit in my wardrobe for the costume party. I was thinking about finally wearing my my formal marine uniform that I let collect dust since I got out of Nam. I haven’t been to one of my comrades funerals or weddings I didn’t want to remember that I had it but it was there in my closet, just looking at me. Reminding me of all the lives ruined, I took it out and hid it under a pile of my old clothes. I was supposed to be the husband of a rich housewife but I had no idea who this housewife was going to be. At first I was like, been there, done that; I wasn’t ready to get back to the married life, even if it was make believe. Then I thought about it and sure I need to be getting out more, anyways. The outfit I picked out was a smooth velvet jacket with a silky brown handkerchief in the front pocket, a light yellow fedora, and a fly pair of blue suede shoes. I also brought with me my Grandpa Joe’s lucky World War I pipe, for aesthetic reasons. Dressing up and getting out of that custodian uniform made me feel some way that I haven’t felt in a long long time. I felt passion, excitement for what was to come and I desire to go out and show them what I got. These feelings dwindle with age, heartbreak and loss but for some reason they came back tonight.

Ever since I was a youngster, me and my crew always made it a point to  show up to house parties fashionably late and I wasn’t about to break tradition this time. The invitation said to show up at 9:00 so I finally left my apartment at about 9:45 on the dot. It was a pretty impressive house, it had a fence with a gatekeeper and a button you have to press for them to let you in. Something was wrong though, the lights were off. What kind of party is it if the lights are off? I decided it was lame and I was wasting my time so I left. That was the end of that.

Post #3 foot prints

“Do you see the shoe?” She asked, waving my shoe up high in the air for us all to see. We all nodded and grunted in confirmation. I wasn’t sure what to think about her but all I know was she seemed like a weirdo to me but whatever made my baby girl happy made me happy. “How big do you think this shoe is?” Several hands shot up. There was a younger girl in the front who was eagerly “oooh, oooh, oooh”-ing and jumping up down hoping to get called on. Izzy looked around the bar, trying to give off the impression she was considering all the options but we all knew who she was going to call on.

“Um, yes you in the striped shirt; what’s your name dear?”

The girl responded eagerly, “my name is Joon!”

“Joon  Like the month?” Isabelle asked back, engaging her.

“No, no my name is Joon it’s spelled like J-O-O-N,” she corrected the host.

“Ooooh, how exotic!” She continued, “so what is size do you think it is?”

The girl thought for a moment, “well, I think that the shoe is a size 13.” The woman looked disappointed in the girl’s answer which made Joon look disappointed in her own answer.

. Then all of a sudden the host’s frown turned into a bright smile, “You are correct!” She let out an awkward soccer mom at a dinner party laugh. My eyes found Courtney’s in the crowd and I just looked at her like “really?” She started going on about carbon dioxide or whatever so I just tuned her out after a while and checked my Twitter. Nothing of substance was trending but I kept scrolling anyways. Before I knew it the presentation was over.

“Thanks for the shoe Mr. Banks!” The host snuck up behind me with Courtney.

“Oh it’s no problem, I just wish you would have showed me in advance, I would have brought an extra pair,” I joked while pointing at my shoeless right foot. We all laughed.

“Thanks for the help Dad, sorry we had to catch you at the last minute,” Courtney said.

“Yeah we couldn’t have done it without you,” her fiance followed with.

“Anything for my Courtney Cakes.”

#6

I always liked shopping at Ikea. In 1997, I went to the national Ikea shopping tour and had a blast. Although Ikea is an amazing place, something was off about this particular Ikea store. You see, in this city we don't have a lot of Swedians but for some reason that's all who work at the Ikea. It's like Ikea is deliberately looking for Swedish employees which I wouldn't have a problem with if they spoke any English.  Also the service is downright awful. I mean what happened to pride, work ethic or anything like that? Someone showed up to work with their shirt covered in mustard. It wasn't just a mustard stain, it was like he just poured mustard on himself as soon as he got dressed, just for fun. In addition to the mustard, every time I would ask them questions they would just make fart noises with their armpits and run away. It was annoying but hey, you had to buy shelves from somewhere. 

#2 Why Tonight?

Why do they always have to go to the basement. That's the lousiest part of my job and the worst part isn't the fact that they feel the need to go to the basement but there's a sign that says "do not enter please and thank you" at the beginning of the stairwell to the basement. One would think that the patrons would have the human decency and consideration to obey the sign’s request but nope. One obviously thought wrong. I was in the middle of finally catching up on my reading. I had spent a whole 2 week's paycheck on this subscription for Men’s Vogue and they’ve just been piling up on my nightstand, unopened and unread. I figured I might as well and I did. I was in the middle reading a pretty riveting article too, on the overrated-ness of q-tips and how we do not give enough value to our earwax until she came along and messed up my good time.

She was noticeably confused, just looking around the basement and not paying me any mind.

“Hey lady!” I called out across the room, lying down in the nice, comfortable and chewed up suede couch that I bought at a bargain from Picasso’s garage sale, a few weeks back. What do the kids say? Finesse. That’s what it was: a finesse. Anyways she acted like she didn’t hear me so I tried again only this time louder. “Miss, you can’t be down here!” Still no reaction. “Oh for the love of Janet Jackson,” I say to myself as I got up to talk to her. I was walking slowly to her but she ran and bumped into me. Oh great, another sleep walker, I thought to myself. “What are you doing in the basement, ma’am?” I asked her. She gave me a weird look and then wondered around. I was worried she was going to crash into a wall or something. Long story short I had to spend an hour snapping her out of it and then took her back up to her room.

Just another day at Winthrop Place.