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Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets
  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
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Wednesday, February 6, 2002
09:46 - Such Hardships We Face

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I was in a taqueria in Fremont last night; as I was finishing up, the clock was winding towards 9:00, closing time. As I took the last few bites, the proprietors turned off the OPEN sign and started stacking chairs on the tables, and the light behind the counter went out.

Just then, a couple entered the store. The guy had sort of curly puffy hair, a baseball cap, and a tank top-- sort of like Carrot Top if he went to the gym and had a Camaro. The female was sort of dumpy and frizzy and in her rapidly progressing 20s, with that haughty sort of I-was-once-a-cheerleader-dammit air about her. They came into the store and went up to the darkened counter.

The surprised proprietor, sweeping up, said, "Oh, we're closed now-- sorry," with an apologetic look. Now, most normal people would take this at its face value, right? You walk into a mostly darkened restaurant at 8:59:59 where the OPEN sign has been turned off and the chairs are stacked on the tables, and you pretty much expect that they won't be eager to serve another customer, right? And even if they were by some miracle of customer service, you'd understand their hesitation, right? You'd maybe cut them a little slack, even show some astonished gratitude?

But no, these people decided to stand there and argue for at least a couple of incredulous sentences. I couldn't hear much of it, but it took a good half-minute for the employee with the broom to convince them that the "Store Hours" sign outside wasn't blatantly lying. Finally they swung around and stomped out the door; but just before disappearing into the night, the woman turned back towards the interior of the store and in that nasal, petulant voice that causes a little ganglion at the back of any hearer's brain to fire off the "heave a large sharp rock immediately" instinct, she said, "Whatever."

Then they were gone. And the excellent burrito I'd just finished suddenly tasted like mud.

Like the woman on Hiker's bus, this little incident burned itself into my mind and could easily have ruined my night if I hadn't been on my way to see a movie that completely took my mind off of desperately stupid examples of humanity. Who the hell-- no, never mind. I'm not going to go off on this tangent. I have peace of mind for the first time this week, and I'm going to cherish it.

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© Brian Tiemann