Having sworn off Mrs. Fields and cin-e-bun and this is a first, I convinced myself to buy a piece of fruit in an airport. I now understand that the real cost of food is not in its intrinsic value but in the distribution. So 99 cents for a banana no longer strikes me as outrageous, even though the cost to the farmer off the tree is mere pennies. A bottle of spring water should not be priced less than say, a can of cola, even though logic would suggest that the cost of the contents is even less than the banana. The economic value is in the package itself. There! Now I don’t feel so bad about being ripped off for a dang banana!

I thought I recognized the guy from before. He was a dark skinned fellow with a full blackbeard and a turban hat, either Muslim or Hindu, thick Indian regional dialect. Recognizing the 7 inch crochet pin inserted deep into the drivers A/C vent confirmed his ID. He’s an interesting fellow. Even though his daytime job is taxi cab driver, he aspires to be a restaurant tycoon. Enroute he points out the vacant lot that he and his investor friends are eyeing. 600,000 but they think they can get it down to 4. His architect has been working hard on the design. What kind of venue, I inquire. Buffet. Indian cuisine, I speculate? No 40 kinds, he says. I’m confused but he’s hard to understand. Something else about square footage and approval to build a basement. I just nod and uhuh. The big crochet needle? He’s pretty deft at handling this tool which he uses to poke and prod under his cloth head gear. I’m ignorant of custom but I don’t think it just lifts up. There may be ceremony ritual involved. But if you got an itch, you got to scratch.

The girls were doing their mallrat thing during dinner hour means it was boys night out. Younguy and I set off for Los Margaritas rickety old place originally a house. Had descent mexican on last visit but the service was soooo-screwed up (we had fun watching a really drunk table, though) we ended up with compt’ meals. This day found the place shutdown closed up out of business. We roll past heading for backup plan(b) and spy a ‘new’ hole-in-the-wall-place, Chico’s Taqauria (next to the Scottish School of Dance!?). We venture in and find the place deserted except for 2 senoritas processing a table piled high with red meat and entrails in the kitchen. There’s way more food then customers so I’m figuring that they are a production line for some other outlet. This place is truly non-english and the sense is to bailout. Besides, I have only $6 cash and they don’t know visa. We excuse ourselves. We finally roost at Tres Maquyas restaurant another low budget eatery. The check, and here’s my Andy Roone impression, is hard to decipher. We figure it out even though they don’t itemize the prices. You have to mentally calculate from memory of the menu as the cashier comes up with a fairly close but likely embellished grand total. We are ill-prepared to do figures in head so I just thrust payment due and be glad it’s not a chinese place. Have you ever tried to translate one of theirs?

The neighbor’s daughters are ‘of age’. One of the boyfriends regularly arrives in a self announcing silver edition Corvette. Testosterone guns his charger back fired and fueled by raucous cop-caller-pipes and a high revving V8 due mostly due to a tired slipping automatic gearbox (dad: stickshift next time, k?). The entire community is aware of his exit when he roars up the street after his visit. Mr. Pralle, tending his front yard, has witnessed this ‘outrageousness exhibition of speed’ and considers the kid an outsider thief of hearts, a young punk. Mr. Pralle YELLS OUT(and I didn’t know he had it in him – it was loud enough to drown out the din from the fleeing vette), SLOW IT DOWN!!

Taking in all this from across the action, it dawned on me that:
a) The vehicle was moving at a clip for sure but not that far over the limit. I’ve seen non-descript drab green minivans driven by harried soccer moms do better.
b) The neighbor’s rage was actually jealousy. He was longing for his own youthful past! hot car… courtship…health…vitality…thrills…irrational exuberance! He was the old bull warning the young buck from his territory. The goldenboy with open T roof blasted through, really flaunting it. Mr. Pralle hollered loud for youth he once owned but now it’s the kid’s moment. Someday he will be standing in a yard too.

Inspecting the contents of my company mailbox I found this note with plea offer to swap vacations so that co-worker could get married / go-on-honeymoon. Maybe I could help him out. Rather, out of it. I think that maybe it’s a sign of fate-god’s-will that maybe he shouldn’t get married and I’ll tell him no trade, eh?. On the other hand… perhaps I’m destined to work and not enjoy holiday that week after all. It’s in the cards. I’m having trouble reading them.

The bottle of springwater displayed this tag on the hotel room bath counter. Right next to the complimentary coffee/tea, soaps and lotions it was offered for what I believe ratchets the price barrier to new height. I wonder how many folks eschew the tap water and go for it. If the guest is on an expense account, I suppose the tidy sum might blend in nicely with the other tabulations on the bill.