Hallelujah Hatrack

Living in Connecticut and being a coffee fiend you’d think that I’d be regionally obligated to drink the large-caramel-with-skim-milk-and-two-Equals from Dunkin Donuts every day, but I do not (and I hope that this does not cause me to lose my New England citizenship – although I’d be happy to be deported back to Baltimore or Phladelphia…).  I try to spread it around: Dunkin most of the time, Starbucks once in a while,

Green
Mountain when I’m at the gas station, and occasionally I slum it and hit the 7-11.

On the days that I go to 7-11 I always seem to run into the same group of ‘interesting’ people:

First, there is the lady with the black velour sweat jacket who, if you get the chance to stand behind her in line while she’s getting her small coffee (aka: two sips – why bother?) and pack of Newports, appears to have about a dozen cats.  She may want to invest in one of those two sided tape roll on a handle thingies and use it prior to leaving the house.  Or at least a nice cheap roll of masking tape if she needs to conserve money for smokes.

Next, there is the beyond-middle age guy who thinks he’s wicked (there’s a nice
New England colloquialism for you!) cool by wearing low rise jeans and quasi-hip T-shirts topped off with an oversized baseball cap with the board-flat brim to the side.  On his way in to the store this morning decided to spit (and look cool in doing so) and ended up with a loogie down the front of his shirt.  He then stood in the parking lot, holding up traffic, while he scraped the expectorate off with his car keys.  As far as I can tell, he likes a nice Slurpee in the morning.

Finally, there is the older lady in grandma jeans, night vision goggle sunglasses that are covering her spectacles, and the ubiquitous Marlboro (the red cowboy killers, not Lights) dangling from her lips.  She has worn a path between the lottery ticket counter and the outdoor garbage can and always follows the same pattern: buy a $5 scratch-off ticket, walk out the door, use the flat top of the trash can and use her fingernail to scratch the ticket, walk back in to collect winnings and/or buy another ticket.  Repeat.  The only deviation is if it’s raining and then she substitutes her steering wheel for the garbage can.  She is doing this regardless of whether I am there at 8:00am, 10:00am, or 4:00pm.  Apparently she makes a good living at this.

Now, since I see them all of the time they must see me.  Wonder what they’re blogging about…?