ON BEING THE LAST SANE MAN STANDING

Because I am a grown-up, I can tolerate a wide span of peculiarity around me. Which naturally accounts for my almost Christ-like patience with the cigar-huffing pickleheads of Marin County, as well as the once-a-week jaunt to North Beach for a late night cocktail. North Beach at night is where conversations go south, and people play in traffic.

I myself do not play in traffic, of course.
Nor do I particularly encourage that.
But it's your life. Go ahead.


There is no more art in the alleyway between Vesuvio and City Lights. It has been replaced by an encampamentu civil por la paz (miniature hobo jungle) the frowsty occupants of which keenly appreciate Olde English Eight Hundred, instead of playing guitars, singing off-key, and selling colourful oil paintings of the capitalized word "f*ck" (without an asterisk).
It still smells of medical grade marijuana, though.
Which San Francisco thinks is therapeutic.
All-natural, green, gmo-free.

At this point you may have detected a slight note of weary cynicism. Pay it no mind. This writer is middle-aged, and keenly desirous that the damned kids get off my lawn.

In another quarter of a century I'll probably be off my rocker, too.
And angrily waving a cane.


My Thursday co-worker is infected by base-line earworms.


Throughout the day, at the most unexpected moments, I would hear "dew dew dew, dew" at random, and discover him nearby restocking a shelf or wiping down a surface. In the storeroom he was humming it among the boxes of cigars. When I walked past the bathroom at one point I swear I heard "dew dew dew, dew", followed by "thumpa thumpa thumpa". When he used the microwave in the kitchen to heat up his lunch, it was "ga-dunga dunga dunga". But mostly "dew dew dew, dew".

"Ba da dung dung dung, ba da dung dung dung."

Given that I have no peculiarities whatsoever, I am unable to understand where someone so grievously afflicted is coming from, or the hardships he faces.

It is a form of neurosis I cannot possibly grasp.
I am a pipe-smoker; I am normal.
He smokes cigars.
Poor guy.


Almost everybody in the lounge is a cigar-smoker, and consequently manifests symptoms of some form of insanity, nervous tic, or complete disassociation from reality. It's like working in a hobo jungle amidst the dysfunctional elements. There is no value judgment here, just an objective statement of fact.

I am so glad none of my stuffed animals smokes cigars.
They are mostly pipe-smokers.
Normal.

I hardly ever go to the Oxxy anymore. The patrons are all cigar-smokers, and I suspect that not a single one of them has a Teddy Bear.

An animal companion would benefit their sanity.
Far more than stogies or booze.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================