|
2001-12-28 - 6:03 p.m.
As much as I love winter, as much peace it brings into my soul, it is also the season that grabs the innermost parts of my heart and tugs with such force that I feel as if my skin will melt away from my bones and leave me with nothing but a barren skeleton with a beating heart drowning in tears. I don't know whether it is the combination of being a woman and the Italina blood that courses through my veins or if it is just the way I was programmed, but there is just a manic need in me to keep everyone warm, to feed them wholesome foods and to make them comfortable. There is a man that comes to the restaurant, he is mentally challenged and trudges through any weather just to come in and drink a pot of coffee or two and chain smoke. He sits for at least two hours and always leaves a dollar. On occasion he has had moments of insanity, he's yelled at almost every waitress in the restaurant with the exception of myself and a weekend girl. Things like someone walking too close to his table set him off. I have always prided myself on knowing the intricicies of people, that's what makes me a born waitress and a born writer. This man talks to me. I have learned that twenty five years ago he was in a car accident, that he has lived in a group home for the past twenty four years and is now finally living on his own. He was never supposed to walk or talk again. And he did, he does. I've also learned that he has no family, that he can't get a job, that he is blind in one eye, I've heard about his father, his grandfather, and I've seen him get tears in his eyes. Today we got quite a bit of snow, enough to make it impossible to open my car door after work. And it is blowing and unceasing. He walked in to the restaurant today, freezing, with only a lightweight jacket. I put a cup of coffee in the microwave so it would be just a little extra hot and I sat him in the booth under the vent. And this made me happy, to see him warm. But when he was done he was waiting for a ride, some girl that works at the home he used to live in that is a real bitch and won't come in to get him so he had to wait outside. He just stood there letting the snow pelt his face with no gloves, no hat, no coat. And he waited for forty five minutes. I kept trying to get him in but he kept saying, "She'll leave me here and I can't get back home in this snow." I decided then that I needed to become a millionaire immediately so I could hire him a competant driver. And on the way home today I saw a family standing on the side of the road. A Lolitaish teenager, a haggerd mother, another teenage that looked disabled and a little four or five year old with thick glasses balanced on his nose. He looked at me as I sat at the light and he smiled a little, kind of a dreamy little smile, forlorn and a little wary. No one seemed to care about him, I mean, it is the busiest street in Kalamazoo and they are 1. standing IN the road waiting for their chance to dodge traffic across 8 lanes, and 2. No one was holding his hand, he was at least three feet from the others. I just wanted to snatch the kid, feed him, put him in a hot bath and then swaddle him in fuzzy fleece, let him watch TV with some hot chocolate. Last night I saw this great commercial. A guy goes into a store and the words, "FEELING LUCKY?" pop on the screen. He gets some lottery tickets, hands over a five. Then it stops and they rewind the commercial and instead of the guy going inside the store he stops at the charity person ringing that damn bell and drops his fiver in the bucket instead. And then the words, "Make someone else feel lucky." (or something like that) pop on the screen. It's a great commercial, but today after seeing all these people I went to the gas station and bought lottery tickets. I'd rather have the slightest chance of winning enough money to help as many people as I can than to drop five bucks in a bucket and hope the person manning that bucket doesn't take it and buy a pack of smokes. Okay, funny story for the day. A guy today was oggling me as I walked by, he had a piece of toast lifted to his mouth and he took a bite only he didn't remove his finger and ended up chomping his index finger badly enough that it bruised. It reminded me of the time I was walking out of the hair salon and two guys in a truck were looking at me and ended up slamming into the back of a fire truck that was stopped at the light. Or the time a guy on a bike ran into a tree as he watched me pass by. Why must men be such assholes? I've never seen a woman do something like that. EVER. Okay, well, one time I ran into the wall as I was flashing a flirty smile at someone. But that was it. Must shovel driveway now. |
|
