It had been a long day,
turning into a long night
when I walked in to a gas station,
counting a stack of quarters in my palm.
Upon my arrival,
the clerk made eye contact with me;
and she had angry eyes.
She was pissed off.
I sensed nothing but contempt
coming from her towards me.
It was real.
I made my coffee
and stood at the counter to pay.
I waited a good two minutes- with
both of us in each other’s eyeshot.
She pretended to ignore me
out of the corner of her eye,
her obvious intention to frustrate my day;
and it was working!
I watched her attempt to count
a stack of lottery-ticket-receipts-
all connected to each other,
and she quickly got frustrated
from folding them back-up accordion-style,
she threw them on the ground
as hard as she could.
I admit that her frustration in not being able
to slam the papers down hard enough
to express her anger
as they slowly fluttered to the floor
was pathetically-adorable!
The game she was playing with me
became unfulfilling for her,
as she was more frustrated
than my body language expressed.
When she rang-me-up,
she looked me over and
noticed that I was dirty,
un-showered;
my clothes were dirty;
And I was counting change-
obviously not the person
whom she thought I was.
“Two Twenty-five.” she said.
I put a dollar bill on the counter
and five quarters.
(That’s $2.25.)
She handed me back
a single penny
as change.
…
The date on the penny was, “1975”.
Was that a change in her,
or was that a change in me?
…
I contend, Both!