OK, so the thing with the guy giving me free smokes last night is still freaking me out. It's baffling behavior, in my way of thinking. I'm used to bizarre behavior, having grown up in Berkeley, and having lived in New York and Los Angeles. But usually that bizarre behavior takes the form of beating someone over the head with a brick, pushing them onto the subway tracks, or shooting at someone for cutting you off on the freeway. Rarely is it altruistic. I've heard of people paying for a stranger's bridge toll behind them, or putting money in someone's meter simply because they're about to run out, but it's never happened to me.

Why did he give me a free pack of cigarettes, returning my money to me and casually waving for me to "go ahead"? It makes no sense.

Beth suggested that perhaps he'd killed and eaten the real gas station employee. Aside from the "eat" part, that's a possibility. He saw someone coming and pretended to be asleep. When I wasn't deterred and woke him up, he thought about killing me but decided it would be less risky just to help me. Then, however, when he realized he didn't know how to work the register, he just told me to take the smokes and leave.

Or maybe Camel had a free promotion that he decided not to talk about. Rather, he waved Camel smokers past, trying to look like a really good guy.

Or maybe he was still asleep and was sleepwalking. Sleep cashiering.

Maybe he smoked Camels and somehow felt an affinity.

Maybe it was his last day on the job.

Maybe it was his last day on Earth. Maybe he'd just taken 100 sleeping pills and I woke him, but as the medicine was quickly taking effect, I would be the last person he ever talked to.

Maybe he saw me as some soulmate, somehow. Maybe he saw into my heart.

Maybe he just does that periodically, for karmic payback. Or karmic maintenance.

Maybe he was thankful that I didn't yell or bang on the glass to get him awake. Instead, I gently said, "excuse me," until he woke up.

Or, maybe he's just a really shitty, really lazy employee.

Finally...

...So I signed up with the big Sprint PCS plan with free long distance and many more minutes. After dumping my pager and the AT&T cell, the cost will be the same. That, I'm happy about it. However, when I called AT&T Wireless to break up with them, something funny happened. I went through the menu choices until I got to, "To Discontinue Service..." I pressed the number. So follow me here: they now know I'm calling to dump them. So when the 3-toothed yokel at the "Call Center" answers, guess what I hear from him. "Our computers are down. They've been down for two days. We have no idea when they'll be back up." So basically they tricked me into telling them that I'm calling the cancel, so, of course, they tell me I can't. So they have me for a few more days. And just maybe I'll forget to call back for a whole other billing cycle. Smart, huh? Wish we humans could do that when we're about to be dumped.

The Larry King Happy Song Corner

 
 
I thought it was you with your optimist's view of the clock. And how it's always another day just after twelve o'clock's struck. You said, "Now I only want you so I don't have to promise." But tiny children in grown-up clothes, whispered all the Crimes of Paris. You're not the girl next door or a girl from France. Or the cigarette-girl in the sizzle hot-pants. All the words of love seem cruel and crass when you're tough and transparent as armoured glass. You're everywhere girl in an everyday mess. Who'll pay for the Crimes of Paris? I heard that you fell for the "Hell or to Hammersmith Blues." In the tiny torn up pieces of his mind, he's irresistible too. Now it's hard to say now if he's only stupid or smart. When he crawled through the door and poured out more of his creeping Jesus heart. You're not the girl next door or a girl from France. Or the cigarette-girl in the sizzle hot-pants. All the words of love seem cruel and crass. When you're tough and transparent as armoured glass. You're everywhere girl in an everyday mess. Who'll pay for the Crimes of Paris?... speaking of which. Larry's been to Paris only once, baby. That was with Delores Frankincense in 1946. Yeah, who knew there was a war going on at the time! Really put a damper on our trip when Delores' leg was blown off by a German K-147 Blue-Betty style landmine.
 
 
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