Craig J. Clark: March 2008 Archives

John approached the men’s room at the venue with some trepidation. He’d been to enough rock clubs and dive bars in the course of duty over the years to know that the only thing to expect in a place like this was the unexpected.

In the past week alone he’d been in a bathroom with no seat on the toilet, one with a full-length mirror on one wall (why, so you could watch yourself taking a dump?), and one with a pile of damp paper towels spilling over the edge of the sink onto the grimy floor since there appeared to be no trash can. John took it all in stride, though. It was part and parcel of attending a large music festival. You took the bad with the good, and he’d heard a lot of good music this week. As he pushed open the door to the men’s room, though, he knew that the bad had caught up with him in a big way.

It was snowing again. Where did it get the nerve? Here it was, the First Day of Spring, and it had the gall to be snowing. This was bad form on Mother Nature’s part, no doubt about it.

When probed about this gaffe, Mother Nature laid the blame at the feet of Old Man Winter, which were usually frostbitten. No one knew why this was the case because he could afford heavy boots. Perhaps it was due to his senility – or the fact that he wore open-toed sandals year-round.

Old Man Winter’s podiatrist was on call 24/7, but he was well compensated for his services. He would have to be since he went home most nights his hands smelling of Old Man Winter’s feet. There was a reason why Old Man Winter’s podiatrist was still a bachelor at 38.

John had never wondered what kind of person had cause to shop for groceries in the middle of the night, but now that he was doing so himself he had time to observe his fellow shoppers as he encountered them in the aisles. He passed one woman three times, but refrained from saying anything cheesy like “So we meet again” or “We’ve got to stop running into each other like this.” In his experience, it never paid to socialize with anybody missing that many teeth.

One by one he ticked off the items on his roommate’s list, studiously avoiding any impulse purchases. As he passed the bread aisle, though, he picked up a loaf of white bread. While he was getting eggs, he might as well make French toast. He couldn’t remember whether he had any cinnamon, though, which necessitated doubling back to the baking aisle. It was there that he succumbed to the temptation to get a box of brownie mix. After all, he was going to have the eggs. Might as well get multiple uses out of them.