under the fluorescents
I don't know where I am anymore. At the grocery store, after months of not visiting for food, I don't even know what to do there. I just look at the refridgerator case, think about cheese, fondle packages of noodles and tortillas, watch the boy in the blue smock mop in the pickle aisle, where someone has spilled brine in a spiral pattern. It makes me feel bad sometimes, all of the things that guy has to clean up. I won't bother to ask him about cat food or mouse traps, because he's busy and uninterested, and so I will just do without those things for now. The mop fills with vinegar, and bits of peppercorn stew around a bit, but the floor doesn't really appear to get any cleaner, and I wonder if he's really even interested in it, or if he'd secretly rather be at another job, one without a smock, where he would be more free to sit in a cubicle by himself and daydream about all of the exciting places where he could go by himself when work was over. He would totally be in Miami, without a mop, meeting girls and surfing, if they surf in Miami.
If someday he could stop focussing on the work, I would tell him that that is what I want, too. Not so much Miami, but something outside. But we're both bound to these roles for the moment. So I leave without buying anything, and go home to mop my own kitchen.
If someday he could stop focussing on the work, I would tell him that that is what I want, too. Not so much Miami, but something outside. But we're both bound to these roles for the moment. So I leave without buying anything, and go home to mop my own kitchen.