A lost item, re-found.

As I sit on my couch doing a puzzle magazine, I set my pencil down at some point, only for it to fall behind the bottom seat-cushion.

Then, when I lift up the seat cushion and I don’t see it and I run my hand around to see if it fell further into crevices there at the edges where the couch-pieces are joined together, it becomes clear that it fell though this gap in the material on which the cushion rests – there was a clatter, and it fell out the bottom of the couch – but in the crevice by the bottom of the couch-back I find a hot pink pencil that I had lost forever ago, and that I had thought was eternally missing.

Three recent-ish customers (3 of 3): Control.

This late summer/early fall at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, two (white) women walk in, one (thin) one in {her late 60s) or (early 70s) and then one that’s like (early 60s), and the (thin) one is like super thin with poles for arms and no breasts and clothes that just hang off of her, and she practically shuffles across the floor, her feet never leaving or barely leaving the ground like they would in a normal person’s gait.

And, for the little itty-bitty lunch special side-salad that we give out as a perk on weekdays, she asks if we serve half-portions, which we don’t.

“Such big portions!’, she said, too, when her pad thai came out. "Are you sure this is the lunch special size?"

Towards the end of the meal, she also requested a take-out box, and although it was the biggest size, her leftover meal practically filled it.

Addendum -- -- --

(My one [art school] colleague who wears [women's] clothes has observed to me before, that working in higher ed makes you so attuned to legal liability that people in other workplaces can think you're crazy, because that's the first place that your mind goes when certain situations develop...  Other workplaces don't just have these traditions of obscene automatic litigation, he means...)

Three recent-ish customers (2 of 3): Chaos.

This late summer/early fall at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, this family of like six (South Asian from South Asia) (Pakistani?) customers come in, a married couple and two elderly parents and two kids, one toddler and like one school age daughter.

And, when they walk in for seating, the little girl is pushing the handicapped button on the door and running inside and out and hanging off the wide automatic door-bar, and as the parents decide to sit on the patio, the toddler has meanwhile wandered over to another table and somehow pulled out a chair and is pushing it across the wooden restaurant floor.

And, when they go to sit outside, the mom points to the nearby AI-generated sign and asks what this made-up gross-looking thing on the board is – they were the customers that did that – and amidst delivering water and taking the order and whatnot, at one point the little girl has pushed her metal patio chair out into the sidewalk and is standing on it as it totters – “Stop that,” the mom snaps as she notices, and then does nothing to correct or end the situation – and at yet another point the little girl’s by the big black metal curves of the bike rack that are bolted into the cement right beside the road, and she’s doing flips around on them like they’re jungle gym equipment, even as cars occasionally pass by at a decent speed.

Like, honestly, I was keeping notes in my head the entire time to put down in writing in case a child was injured, to shield the restaurant from liability.

Like, it was that egregious.

Three recent-ish customers (1 of 3): Confusion.

This late summer/early fall at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, a(n older) (curly-haired) (Jewish-looking) woman with a slight foreign accent and dark glasses and a dress of bright patterns was in with two friends, and she kept talking about the menu and (Thai) food and what dishes are good in general and what dishes are good here, etc. etc. etc.

And, after they all order their entrees, I bring over chili flakes and also some chili sauce for one of them, and she immediately takes the chili sauce and starts spooning it out onto the piece of cold rice paper-wrapped vegetarian summer roll that she has in her hand, neglecting entirely the peanut dipping sauce that comes with it.

And, their meals come, and one is upset that we served pad woon sen kee mao instead of pad woon sen, even though I had verbally confirmed the order like I always do with a table after getting everyone’s orders.

And, after they leave, the little ceramic spoon has gone missing from the pot of chili flakes on their table, and finally someone finds it, and they had not only put it in the pot of the chili-sauce, but it was covered in peanut dipping sauce, too, like they had just picked it up and indiscriminately used it with every single sauce that was present on the table, mixing peanut sauce with chili sauce and chili sauce with peanut sauce and vice-versa and whatnot, indiscriminately, not like you're supposed to do at all.

Some plans for Halloween decorations this year.

A good ways before Halloween this past year at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, my one (older) (Thai) coworker who’s a whiz at the phones was showing us all on her smartphone some pictures of a skeleton-fence that she had ordered to put around her garden, for the upcoming holiday.

And, I started joking that she was showing us these pictures, but she actually was a murderer, and she wasn't going to use that fence she was showing us at all, instead she was going to build a fence from the bones of her victims.

And, as soon as I said that, she got this glint in her eye and she started smiling devilishly.

“Like a conspiration,” she was like.

And, I started saying that everyone on her block would have bone decorations for Halloween, but no-one would know that there was a difference, because the bones in her decorations were real.

And, during this entire conversation, she kept smiling devilishly, but my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker started getting really upset.

“Why you talk like this?”, she was like. “Say something positive.”

“Okay, okay!”, I was like. “She only kills people who deserve it!”

And, at that she gave an exasperated sigh and shook her head and left, and my one (older) (Thai) coworker started saying that the key to making these bone decorations was not to kill anyone you know, because then police could easily trace the murders back to you.

Three happenings on a late summer / early fall trip to the local supermarket:

1) A takeout rice box is sitting thrown away near a local free food pantry, with long strands of human hair curling out of it, and a crumpled-up napkin sitting inside its middle.

2) The double-scoop ice cream cone from the ice cream shop on the way home looks good, but the bottom scoop turns out to be mis-scooped, as it is standard chocolate chip, and not the mint-chip that I ordered.

3) A large squirrel is dead in the street with flies around its mouth, which appears to lack teeth, but is rather just this anus-like gush of red as if its palate had extruded outward through its mouth.