Monday, July 21, 2003

Weird Monday It’s a Monday in July. I’m retired from my file clerk gig of thirty-seven years, but I still get up early, because I still feel weird and unnatural if I lay around in bed too long. My fifteen year old kid, Danielle, has to do home schooling work and she’s up, but she’s taking her time about getting around to it. She asks me if I’ll walk her down to the corner for some donuts. My wife, still in bed, says she has to do her homework first, but Danielle pleads that she has to do her morning walk before she’s in shape to do home work. My wife relents. Danielle and I go down to the corner and she picks out glazed and whipped cream donuts while I get a Brand X type of cornflakes. I introduce Danielle to the check out lady, hoping they’ll hit it off, since Danielle’s Italian and the check out lady comes from Cleveland’s Little Italy. The check out lady tells Danielle I’m a good guy, but Danielle answers something like, “You don’t know, you don’t live with him”. So we go home and Danielle turns on the television and starts slowly eating her donuts. I yell at her to do her schoolwork, so she goes upstairs and hopefully does it. What my Monday mornings used to be like was that I got up at five, did some writing, made lunch and put it in a paper bag, ate cornflakes, milk and a banana, woke the wife and kid up and drove to work. That’s normal for me. It’ll never be the same. 10:03:54 AM