Oooooo, strange...

Have I mentioned that I have my 10 year high school reunion some time this year? And that there is no way in hell that I'm going? So, anyway, I was on myspace, checking my a friend's 'blog when I decided to follow her HS link back to Old Mill Senior High, where I could narrow the field down to people who graduated in 1996. (I think there were maybe 9 pages of people). Amazing how many of those people have babies. (Ewwww. Just Ewwww.) I guess a lot of them are married and have jobs or something like that. (And I work in a convenience store.) But it is not so bad as all that--I've had a more interesting life in 10 years than most of them will have in 30 years. (Then again, is this actually a good thing? I think it is. I mean, how many of them can say that they've lived in France, Canada, and Arizona? How many can say that they've been to Morocco?)

Still, it is all very weird. 10 years since HS graduation does not actually seem like a very long time, especially when I consider all that I've done and experienced in those 10 years. It really makes me wonder if the next 10 years will be as eventful (I kinda hope that they aren't).

So, anyway, I wrote a little something describing (some of) the customers who pass through the hallowed air-conditioning of a boardwalk convenience store:

[...] I can usually tell the smokers by the condition of their sin, the sound of their voice. Tired mothers (obvious)--or uncomfortable fathers spending time with children they dont' normally see--encouraging them to get toys and sodas which the children shyly refuse or accept. The popular high school girls--groups of 3 or 4, the same height and build, buying Krispy Kreme Donuts--who do not even deign to talk to me (or look at me!) because I am not a part of their perfectly designed plastic world (they wear eyeliner to the beach). Older women with burlap skin, buying tan accelerator. Pudgy late 20s/early 30s guys, with recent potbellies hanging over the waistbands of not-so-recent swimming trunks, raw pink sholders bespeak skin not used to beach sun. Customers attached to cell phones (including one who had an entire conversation with his girl friend while wandering the asiles of the store). Customers who will not hand me money, but who leave stacks of crumpled up bills on the counter for me to seek and discover, flatten out and count--all the while they shift their weight or tap impatiently as I make change. Angry, ID-less kids who want to buy cigarettes and who call me a "fucking bitch" and stomp out--or (worse) crowd the counter in a nicotine withdrawl temper tantrum.

But! Two more weeks, and I'm off to Mexico!