A Day Like Any Other (But with a Lot More Rain)
I knocked over my water glass at the fancy new restaurant and when the waiter said "Have you ever been to this restaurant?" in my mind he was asking if I'd ever been to any restaurant. I felt like that much of an oaf.Then back home here I dropped the sewing box I have had for 25 years, a roomy multi-tiered thing with a place for bobbins and thread and a shears-shaped cut-out where you're meant to nestle your shears. It’s made of hard plastic, dark amber in color, like the old tortoise shell combs, and when it landed on the bare floor it exploded like a grenade and a shard sharp enough to open an artery shot into my leg. (Not that much blood, as it turned out.)The day was like that all around. Rain poured and winds gusted to 40 miles an hour. My hat blew off and cartwheeled across the grocery store parking lot before landing in a puddle half under somebody’s car. Then too I worked on a major sewing project for so long my back wouldn’t straighten afterward. Oh and I sat outside in my car in the soggy weather waiting for someone who forgot I was even coming.BUT in the supermarket a woman stocking the shelves sang “Hard Day’s Night” in this total pop star voice and then winked at me when I looked over at her.And a man 80 who was tailing his wife in the Health and Beauty aisle called out "I don’t need any lipstick today!” to the back of her head. Then he winked at me too, adding, “They don’t have my color anyway.”And just as I approached the checkout, I saw someone I had not laid eyes on in 30 years. Mac, as everyone has always called him, was an usher in our wedding. David’s best pal from high school, he still looks exactly like he did then except his hair is grey. We talked for a bit and parted smiling/.I wish I had had my camera with me so I could illustrate this ordinary day that was nice enough in the end except for the foot cramps that lifted me howling out of my bed again when I finally crawled into it at midnight.It was a day like any other day, with good moments and bad, soggier than most for sure."I'll take it." I said to myself as I held my face up to the wet at one point.
And I'll take this new day too.
