Sage advice that I read years ago in an ethnography textbook:

If there's something social that you think is a trend, don't be worried if you miss fully recording it, observation-wise, since if it's truly a trend, it will continue to re-occur and you'll come across it again, as something truly socially relevant.

. . .

(I recently thought about this in relation to some popular writing that I was doing, since it was about a recent multi-year trend but I couldn't get it out into a popular forum in time in relation to two successive news cycle hooks...  Eventually, however, another one came around again, since it's truly a trend, and so I had a third occasion present itself, and I had a reason to finally throw it online, well over a year after drafting the initial piece!)

Revelation of my two (female) (Thai) coworkers a month or two ago...

...about the homeless people around town in the one college town that I now live in:

My one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones carries pepper spray in her purse for when she's walking home at night, and both her and my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker won't tell the random homeless people who sometimes sit on our front patio furniture very occasionally to move, even if it's just the (very short) (lemon-sucking faced) (old) (white) woman, since they're all friends with one another and if any one of them got mad, they could go tell the others and gang up on them and come at them out of nowhere.

. . .

Enjoyable coworker interaction the other day...

...at the (Thai) restaurant where I work now:

I was clearing the last glasses on a table by the front window while my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones was waiting with the spray bottle and towel to wipe it down, and as I was picking up the very last stuff, she broke from just standing there, waiting, and she slightly held out the spray bottle and mimicked pulling the trigger a few times, as if she was going to spray the spray bottle all over my hand.

Smoothing things over.

Recently, because the (Thai) owners of the (Thai) restaurant where I work now are on vacation with their family in (Thailand), my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker and my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones have been holding down the fort and one of them is always there whenever the restaurant is open, although the (husband) of the (Thai) owner couple is still making up the schedules remotely and I guess they're still in touch with him about stuff electronically.

Anyhow, one week after the final schedule was out, he withdrew the schedule like 12:30pm on a weekday, and he wanted me to work that night like 5-10pm, only I never saw it because I try to shut my phone down on my time off so I'm not tied to electronics, and not only that, I was working on a(n academic) article till super late at night, so I didn't see all the text messages and attempts at calling me until like 10:30pm that night, until after the whole shift was over and everyone had started to worry about me.

And, it turns out to have been a hugely busy night and they were shortstaffed, and my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker had to come in, but she only came in after the dinner rush, so my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones got stuck with a lot of work, after all the extra work that she's been putting in anyways.

Then, when that weekend comes around, I didn't notice that that same schedule change had also slightly changed another shift and that I was now supposed to come in at 4pm instead of 5pm, so by the time I come in at like 4:45pm, it's too late for my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones to take a break, even though she was working a double that day, after all the extra work that she's been putting in anyways.

And, I felt like shit and apologized profusely, and she was gracious and said it wasn't me, but the bad schedule change from the (husband) owner.

And, separately, when I also apologized to her, my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker said not to apologize to her, but to our (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones.

So, since she likes sweet baked goods, I had the idea to get her a giftcard from a local (Asian) specialty bakery that I had once gone by in the bus and seen her walking down the street by.

So, "Should I get ten or fifteen dollars?", I asked my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker.

"Fifteen," she was like.

Three things that happened one night at the (Thai) restaurant the other week:

1) That same night the three (white) women were in town to hear a band, this (old) (like early 80s) (white) couple sat down, and the (shorter) (fatter) (short-haired) (round-faced) wife just had this big scowl plastered on her bleached crinkly face, and she just seemed super unhappy, whether that was how she always is, or something had happened that she had went and brought inside the restaurant and was affecting her there.

And, she wanted some (red) wine that we were out of, and then she asked for the pinot noir, and I said that we might have almost a full glass of that left, and if not, we could discount it accordingly.

So, she said that was fine, and so I went and brought her a glass that was like 65% full, and I said we could give it to her for $4.

"And how much is it regularly?", she was like.

"Seven," I was like.

And, it was like the gears were whirring behind her scrunchy little pig eyes as she calculated the price  of the wine and how unhappy she was feeling and whatnot, and then all that stopped and her face became calm and she went and she sipped it, and then she just exclaimed and was like, "This wine is awful, it tastes like the bottle has been open forever!".

"I'm sorry, ma'am," I was like, and then I said that I had opened the bottle myself the previous night, and we used vacuum corks.

"Well, I don't want it," she was like, and then she asked me for another (red) wine, but there was even less of that one left, and so the only real option was merlot, and when I told her that, she was like, "Well, let's forget about the wine," she was just so determined to be unhappy.

(One of the three [white] women was also drinking the pinot noir and they were all still there, so I asked her before the table paid their bill if everything was okay because we had had a complaint about it, and I told her that someone had said that it tasted really old although I had opened the bottle myself the previous night, and she said no, it was fine, it actually tasted really fresh.)

2) Like forty minutes before closing, this (short) (Central American-looking) (young) guy comes in and walks to a table and slumps in it, and I was busy in the back, but my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker and my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones got me as soon as I come out, to ask me to go talk to him.

And, I do, and he says something, and I switch to (Spanish), and he asks me for a michelada, and I say we don't have that, and then he slumps over to go to sleep again, and somehow I talk to him and get him over to the door, and he's staggering, and he's confused on how to open the door, and we get him outside.

Then, I briefly talk to my coworkers, and I end up calling the police because the guy is so severely drunk that he could walk into traffic and get hit, though I specify that he wasn't belligerent or anything like that, just super drunk and could be hurt.

And, before the police comes, he comes inside again, and we have to get him outside again, and then the police come and we can see a (late 30s) (taller) (white guy) officer talking to him and giving him some stern warning, at the end of which the guy goes off staggering away down the sidewalk away from the restaurant and the restaurant windows where we can see everything, and we never see him again for the rest of the night.

3) After the whole super busy night, my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at phones reminds me ten minutes before close that I still have to drink the pinot noir, so I pick the glass up that's been sitting out that whole while and I go to chug it.

Then, right before I do, I stop and am like, "And now I will be drunk like that guy."

"And we will call the police on you," she was like.

Local pride.

A few weeks ago at the (Thai) restaurant where I work now, I was chit-chatting with three (white) women who were in, like one early 60s and 2 others in their early 40s, one of whom was (vegetarian).

And, it turns out that they had popped over from a town like an hour away to hear a concert at a local venue, and they were friends and relations of the band, as they said after I had said that I had heard of the band but had never seen it, and that people say it's really good and that I had heard that the concerts always sell out and so you have to get your tickets early.

And, since their town that they named is the same one where my one (sound guy) coworker is from, I decided to drop on them a trivia fact about it that he had told me.

"Oh, [their town's name]!", I was like. "Doesn't [their town's name] have the most [removed] per capita in the United States?"

"Why, YES," gushed the (early 60s white woman), and at that both of the other ones also burst out burbling and were like "I didn't know that," etc., and then she started immediately affirming to them that yes, it was true.

Then, like forty minutes later, my one (sound guy) coworker got back from doing delivery ones, and when I imitated how the woman gushed to him, he just started laughing uproariously.

"It's always something," he was like. "If you're in a town, you always have to have something."

I then told him that years and years ago my father had once observed the same thing to me, right after we drove through this really small town that had a huge sign up saying that they were the smallest incorporated municipality in the state.

Addendum.

When I had left my house right before the heavy rains the other day, I had my front door closed, but the half-window was up over the screen on the storm door, since a lot of nights I leave my front door open but the storm door closed with the half-window open to let cool air in.

So, when I got home after the farmer's market, there was a ton of raindrops on the lower half of the front door, since all that had blown in through the open half-window on the storm door when I was gone.