All By Myself, Letter I

I did a search for 'All By Myself' and this is one of the first images that came up. Clicky to find the site I took it from.

Dear. Mr. B.

So, you’ve been gone for a few hours. Since I haven’t seen you since you left me at work this morning*, I can say that, effectively, you’ve been gone for eight hours and forty six minutes [according to the time displayed on the Magic Thinky Box, at any rate]. I spent eight of the hours working, and in between customers and the power going out briefly and the other assortment of tasks that usually add up to My Day In The Workplace, I spent a lot of time thinking about how much it was going to suck going home to your absence. When I wasn’t thinking about how much it was going to suck, I was thinking about how weird it was going to be. When I wasn’t thinking about how weird it was going to be, I was probably thinking about the fish, or the sandwich that I had for lunch [that was also fish!].

Anyway, I thought I would write you some letters while you’re away, and then post them in a very public venue for all the world** to see before you are even able to access a computer to read them yourself! HA. I’m awesome like that.

So, the power went out. For like twenty five seconds. Or something. It was just long enough for everyone in the shop to register that something had changed in the atmosphere. The power buzzed out just as I knocked empty one of the espresso filters. It was timed so well I thought that maybe there was a Store Power button on the piece of super-dowelling we strike the filter wands against. I didn’t really think that, but I did have enough time to say[ in an very amusing way], when everyone in the store turned to look at me [at least, that’s how it felt, as I was the only person behind the counter], “I didn’t do it”.

And then the power came back on, and oddly, the gloomy weather that had been plaguing us all morning was gone. I hadn’t noticed the weather change before power outage, but afterwards, it was definitely blue skies. It rained more later on in the afternoon, though.

A couple of hours later, my boss was talking about all the things that got messed up because of the power outage that we hadn’t stopped to consider. I mean, I fixed the time on the microwave, which is easy peasy, but we didn’t register for two or three hours—as it got hotter and hotter in the store—that something was wrong. That something being that when the power went out [or perhaps came back on] it snapped the breaker for the store’s AC off.

My boss also pointed out that no one had weighed anything on the scale since the power outage either, since it wasn’t zeroed out properly. I informed him that I had weighed coffee, but since I couldn’t get it to zero out, I just used my brain maths. He laughed at me, and said, “When in doubt, turn the machine off and back on.”

I let him know that I felt around for the on/off switch but since I couldn’t feel it, gave up. He laughed at me again, which, though I was speaking the truth, was the intended result.

Throughout this exchange, a customer had been standing by, waiting for us to get him a half pound of coffee beans. He chose now to come into the conversation, and the following short exchange occurred:

Customer: “So, we shouldn’t send you on the next mission to Mars, eh?”***

Me:”I don’t want to go to Mars anyway. I like my planets to have more atmosphere.”

Cust:”No doubt! It would pretty boring. Sure you’d be digging in Martian dirt, but you’d still just be digging dirt.”

I was disappointed he didn’t get my clever joke. Then again, I’m sort of used to people not getting my jokes. Maybe I’m too subtle? That’s probably it.

The red planet I won't be visiting due to its lack of discos and coffee bars. And air.

Anyway.

It was after that conversation that I decided that writing these little letters to you might be fun. I didn’t think I’d remember about my stupid joke by the time you got back, and I wanted to tell you about it. I don’t know how much you’ll feel like sitting long enough to read these once you’re home though. We’ll see. I’ll try not to write one every day.

Once I got home from work, I played with Sunday for a bit, and then came inside. The filter was making a funny noise. It still is. I took the sponge off the filter thinking that if I rinsed it that may help, but it didn’t. Miss Ann is coming over when she gets back from hanging out with her family to look at it for me, since I know nothing about fish tank filters. Also, I’m worried about the Froggy Doo. That doesn’t have to be his name, it’s just what I’ve been calling him when I’m talking to the tank. His one knee on his back leg is bright red, and he’s not swimming very well. I hope he’ll be okay. Miss Ann is going to look at him too, although I don’t know how much knowledge she has about dwarf aquatic frogs.

I figured that it was suitable though, since this is my first day home alone, that a bunch of things would go wrong with the one thing in the house I have the least knowledge and experience with.

Now it’s been [effectively] nine hours and fifteen minutes since you left me. It’ll only be, what? Sixteen more days until you’re back—give or take a couple.


Thinking of you,

Miss S. =^.^=


P.S. I’m not doing any dishes tonight, but I might dust something. I also might not.


*Although this will probably become clear as you continue reading, when I say ‘left me’, I mean that literally—he drove me to work, ate a muffin with me while I had a healthy rice krispie square, and then left after saying goodbye and giving me a hug and a kiss. I don’t mean ‘left me’ as in ‘Bitch, I’m dumping your stank ass’, or anything nasty like that. He’s out of town for work.

**’All the world’ is a phrase that here means “the five people that may or may not read this”.

***You know, I’m not actually sure what that had to do with anything, but I’ll roll with it. Just like I did when it happened.