California Dreaming
"This world is big and so awake. I stayed up late to hear your voice. This light is here to keep you warm, this song is here to keep you strong. I made a list of things to say, but all I want to say, all I really want to say is..."
Hell of a night, hell of a day. Work was insanely busy. I spent the first hour of my shift by myself behind a bar that just barely held back a wall of customers three or four deep. Co-drones turned up to help out in the end, but it was an evening of annoying people and minor altercations, the kind of shift where you know that it's all building up and that, sooner or later, that one customer is going to come along and say the wrong thing and you're going to go nuclear.
Except it didn't happen. Not tonight. No, tonight I was the very epitome of customer service. I was quick and efficient, polite and friendly. I had smiles and quick one-liners for every customer I served, even the ones I loathe. Yes, even when they were complaining about the glasses or the girl I was working with or the taste of the beer, I was warm and accomodating and respectful.
The other drones that orbit the small and rather unhygienic satellite that is the Toby Carvery were perhaps a little perturbed by this. After all, they may only have known me a couple of months, but in that time they have no doubt become used to a tired and somewhat brooding version of my character, a boy playing experienced yet weary barman. This happy, friendly person was surely some kind of doppelganger. The Michael they know does not bounce.
But bounce I did. Earlier in the day, I screamed and danced and hugged my frightened mother and ran around the house for no good reason that anyone could see. For the first time in a long time, I felt like there was some kind of a future, a light at the end of the tunnel, a whole world of possibility. And it made me a little crazy.
Yeah, I'm still typing at you from the same old Darkened Room. I'm still the same guy thinking the same thoughts and dreaming the same dreams. But in at least one very subtle way, I am different.
Because less than four weeks from now, on November 19th, I'm flying to California.
Hell of a night, hell of a day. Work was insanely busy. I spent the first hour of my shift by myself behind a bar that just barely held back a wall of customers three or four deep. Co-drones turned up to help out in the end, but it was an evening of annoying people and minor altercations, the kind of shift where you know that it's all building up and that, sooner or later, that one customer is going to come along and say the wrong thing and you're going to go nuclear.
Except it didn't happen. Not tonight. No, tonight I was the very epitome of customer service. I was quick and efficient, polite and friendly. I had smiles and quick one-liners for every customer I served, even the ones I loathe. Yes, even when they were complaining about the glasses or the girl I was working with or the taste of the beer, I was warm and accomodating and respectful.
The other drones that orbit the small and rather unhygienic satellite that is the Toby Carvery were perhaps a little perturbed by this. After all, they may only have known me a couple of months, but in that time they have no doubt become used to a tired and somewhat brooding version of my character, a boy playing experienced yet weary barman. This happy, friendly person was surely some kind of doppelganger. The Michael they know does not bounce.
But bounce I did. Earlier in the day, I screamed and danced and hugged my frightened mother and ran around the house for no good reason that anyone could see. For the first time in a long time, I felt like there was some kind of a future, a light at the end of the tunnel, a whole world of possibility. And it made me a little crazy.
Yeah, I'm still typing at you from the same old Darkened Room. I'm still the same guy thinking the same thoughts and dreaming the same dreams. But in at least one very subtle way, I am different.
Because less than four weeks from now, on November 19th, I'm flying to California.
posted by Michael at 7:19 PM
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