Excuse the double negative, but I can’t have nothin’. I would love to pretend that I notice and indeed relish the small pleasures in life, but it has become increasingly apparent that even those small pleasures will always be just out of my reach. “Example please” says you. “Last Wednesday,” says me.
The calendar date was actually December 14, 2005, The Year of Our Lord. I had just paid myself two days early. I am able to do that because among other things, I do our accounting at my job, and writing myself a check a couple of days early is one the perks of being the book keeper at the rather small company that has had the good sense to employ me. Of course nobody else gets paid early, and I do hope this is between you and me, fair reader.
After work, I had some money in my pocket, and I immediately went off to pay bills. I was quite positive I needed to pay my cell phone bill because my phone service had been suspended a few days before. This is how I am always sure that my phone bill is dilatory, and must be paid. Sure, for those friends that need to reach me during the time my phone service is suspended and the time that I pay myself early, it is a bit inconvenient. But for me, brief periods of not being plugged into the grid are therapeutic and restful. Wait, did I just make a Matrix allegory? My geekness is increasing with every web log post, no doubt.
So, off I went to Verizon, and in I walked to pay my phone bill. And there was my friend Bernard paying his bill at the self service kiosk just inside the door. Actually, it wasn’t him at all. But I didn’t realize that until I had said “what’s up man” to the stranger trying to pay his phone bill. He looked at me as if trying to place me, shrugged his shoulders, decided to play along, and said “you know how we do.” This forced but pleasant banter went along for a couple of minutes after that. He even stuck around and chatted when it was my turn. We compared how much money we had shoved into the machine. He had fed the Verizon self-rape machine $160.00, whereas, I had only given it $140.00. We walked outside together shaking our heads at what Verizon was doing to the good hard-working people of Asheville, NC. He said “‘the Verizon self-rape kiosk’, now I gotta remember that,” waved and got into his car.
Despite lightening my wad by $140.00, I was feeling warm inside on this cold, cold day in December. This was actually the coldest day of the season so far, and what I did not know then is that an ice storm would attack Asheville that evening, knock the power out at my place of work, and allow me to sleep in the next morning. I did not know that then, but still I was happy. I had just had one of those interactions with a stranger that could have gone off in an awkward way but did not. It was then that I made my most fateful decision of the day. I would reward myself with Starbucks and more specifically a Venti, Caramel Machiatto.
Now before you gather your anti-globalization friends to firebomb my street and turn over the BMW parked in front of my apartment, please know that I do not usually go to Starbucks. I was making an exception today because it was cold and Starbucks has a drive through, and also because Caramel Machiattos, though evil and exploitive, are delicious. So before you convince Bono and Chris Martin of Coldplay(both faithful readers of this Blog) to hold a benefit concert to encourage the French and the hippies to loot all the Shuggie Otis CD’s and John Coltrane posters from my residence, let me say that I usually only drink coffee made with Fair Trade beans and flavored with Fair Trade yak milk and Fair Trade Bolivian honey bee honey. In fact, I take it a step farther. Fair trade is not enough. I make sure that the people who grew my Arabica beans actually exploited the independent coffee shop that I frequent. I make sure that I pay more for the yak milk than I would normally pay for a yak. But on this day it was cold. I was weak, and again I must insist: Caramel Macchiatos are delicious.
So I paid my four dollars for my Caramel Macchiatos and gave a dollar tip to the cute barista who had taken my order and had not judged me. As I was pulling out of Starbucks and checking traffic both ways for any of my activist friends, I decided that nothing goes better with a Caramel Macchiato than a Nat Sherman cigarette. So I carefully lit one of those skinny, dark brown cancer sticks and made a right turn. I could smell a lot of caramel and some macchiato. I had carefully wedged my venti drink in between my legs. BMWs of my year and model do not come with cup holders. They turn on a dime, but there is nowhere to put your Caramel Macchiato except your lap. Germans try to be funny at the weirdest of times. I am heading down the four lane road when suddenly I do the strangest thing.
I slammed on my brakes to stop at a yellow traffic light. All my life yellow has meant speed up. I have never slowed down or stopped at any yellow light that I can ever remember. Ever. Asheville has notoriously long yellow traffic lights. It embodies Asheville’s very damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t attitude. Our yellow lights are longer than our green lights. So I never stop at them. But today I did. I was driving along, saw the light was yellow and suddenly this unexplainable fear gripped me. I slammed on my brakes, and my Caramel Macchiato crashed into the foot that was on the brake pedal, and the lid came off, and suddenly my floor had three inches of wonderful, caramel colored liquid sloshing around in it.
Quickly, I grabbed the cup which was now floating on top of the new pond in my floor board and noticed the little bit of froth attached to the bottom. I drank that tiny little sip, and let me tell you something. That was the best freaking coffee drink I have ever had in my life. That little sip was so delicious that my eyes began to swell up with tears. I threw my cigarette at my feet in disgust, and then started to worry about electrical fires. By my quick estimations looking at what was covering the drivers side floor board of a BMW 325i, a Starbucks venti container holds about seven gallons. I never knew it was that much until I saw it all at once out of the container. The light turned green, and as I was contemplating if my feet were safe on the accelerator something almost creepy happened. All the liquid disappeared. One minute I holding my knees up to my chin while I was trying to take off from a traffic light (this is hard because after perusing my backseat I realized that I did not in fact have a large stick with which I could control my gas and brakes), and the next minute I was timidly putting my feet (which were already wet from the initial soaking) back where they belonged.
I am still not completely certain where my Caramel Macchiato went, but later that night as the temperature dropped even more, one of my friends got into the back seat of my car and said something about a brown ice skating rink.
I have a cold now which I blame on that cursed event. That evening I was never able to make it home and change my shoes and socks. So my feet remained cold and wet for most of the night. Everywhere I went I left little caramel footprints. It’s hard to be smooth with the ladies when your feet smell like coffee and whipped cream…or is it?
So if this cold worsens, and I am suddenly taken off of this earth, don’t blame the weather or the rough flu season. Just know that the thing I wanted most in my life killed me, but only after it had let me have a very small taste.
