Spare Change

Going Down?

Posted by Bryan

Yesterday, I took a box down to the mail room. This box's contents need to meet me in Ohio for my conference this weekend. When I arrived, I saw a mail cart full of loaves of bread, containers of muffins, and other baked goods. Apparently, a 'connected' individual will go to a nearby store and, as a goodwill gesture, take off the store's hands all of the "day old" baked items that would otherwise go to waste.

So, the mailroom guys encouraged me to take what I wanted.

I settled on a bag of hoagie rolls, a tray of chocolate chocolate chip muffins, and a small platter of assorted breakfast danishes. And just what is the plural of danish? Danishes doesn't look correct, probably because it too closely resembles vanishes or Spanishes. But I digress.

So, I take my bounty that would certainly cause Dr. Atkins to "roll" over in his grave and return to my office.

Eventually, the time arrives for me to go home, where I can win the continued adulation of my family because I have affirmed my reputation as the dangerous but brave Bread Gatherer. I will undoubtedly regale them that evening over a meal of submarine sandwiches about the adventurous tale of how I stalked my quarry to the bottom of that mail bin and swooped the bag of buns by the twist-tie, sealing its fate.

Before that can happen, though, I must get to my car. So, I load up my loaves and head to the elevator.

On the third floor, the interruption chime dings, and I duly step aside for the travelling companion about to enter.

It is a young lass, who couldn't be more ready to go home if she were actually wearing a sandwich board sign declaring as much.

I'm content to share our thirty-foot ride in silence. Oh no, she must have assumed, that would not be cordial. So she asks me, after looking me up and down and figuring I must have an exciting bread-hunting story that can be told in thirty seconds or less, "How are you doing today?"

I might take a moment to remind you that I really don't do very well at this sort of thing, but I'm always willing to try to improve.

So, with impeccible comedic timing, and a wit as dry as the day-old muffins blossoming from my cornucopia-like bosom, I reply, "about as well as you can be, with an armload full of carbohydrates."

I know.

Now.

Why can't I control myself?

Yes, I am pathetic and I deserve your mocking.

She looked me up and down as though she had just bitten into a jalepeno bagel to discover all that green was really a fuzzy layer of mold. She was so sickened by my absolutely inane rejoinder that she was silenced, less she actually gag in my presence. The lobby level chime sounded like the alarm on her childhood EZ-bake oven, and she was poppin-fresh to escape my yeasty hilarity.

The next time I'm in that situation, I have to remember there is only one acceptable answer:

"Fine, thanks. How are you?"

Everything else will take care of itself.

April 20, 2004 1:40 PM