customer service is making me an asshole

customer service is making me an asshole, i noticed today, this evening, outside the walkthrough of the latenight mcdonald's across the street.

i was standing in the line up, behind cars, inhaling exhaust waiting to place my order when a lady came up to me. she wanted some change, so i gave her the loonie and two quarters i had. she said she needed eight dollars and looked really sad, so after i placed my order (mcnugget meal, fries, and a coke, which was delicious) i gave her another two dollars.

then we got to talking.

she was nice, coherent, toothless, on crutches, had a runny nose.

she told me, despite being poor she still plays the lottery. "i'm lucky", she said, which now as i type her words I realize how ironic it was. and sad.

i told her that there isn't a price for a bit of hope, which i thought was clever.

then i got my meal, we continued to small talk about the rich people that were saying no while we inhaled their fumes and waited with our runny noses.

then time came to say good bye, she said good night

i told her to have a lovley night.

we looked at each other, it was awkward silence, i smiled.

then i walked away, thinking of what i had just said.

have a lovely night.

i say that to people on the phones after i'm done giving them their balances or helping them pay a bill and in that context it makes sense, though in the real world, in her real world, as she stood shaking with her crutches in near tears it didn't.

telling somebody to have a lovely night, as though the possibility for one exists is enough to make them cry.

price of cabs

gas is expensive, i know, or have been told (i take transit or walk)

cabs are expensive, i know, because i take them quite frequently now that i've fully been assimilated to city life.

they must be expensive because of the price of gas, i think / thought

...but they all drive Prius'...they don't use that much gas, or any, depending.

i was looking over the shoulder of my cab driver today watching the gauges, watching the gas stay on full, never move, and the power gauge as it moved slightly.

the cab was from the airport to my house was 35 dollars, he didn't use any gas, it took him 20 minutes, he was clearly illiterate and a lesser version of human then I and makes -- at this rate anyways -- $100 dollars an hour.

they should really change the price of cabs, i think.

Quotables!

Raymond Chandler

Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of bar-room vernacular, that is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed and attentive. The method may not be perfect, but it is all I have.

Routes

Looking upwards.

The Ozone layer is the tower of Babel of the modern Era. Here is humanity, so reassured in their vanity and their need of beauty that they knowingly engulf themselves in hair sprays and cologne so they can look good and smell well to their fellow man. As our hubris soars ever higher to the tip of the earth, our egos tear upon a hole into the heavens themselves and down comes the fiery retribution for loving ourselves more than our superiors. Skin Cancer, cataracts, early aging, all the acts of a vengeful universe finally envious. Like the lowly cockroaches who wish to infest our beautiful cities, we squash them when they invade our territory. The little cockroaches, daring to infect the beautiful penthouse apartments on fifth avenue, awarded for their struggle by a steel toed boot.