Good Food & Good Company

Today after my first class, I walked up the six steep flights of stairs to my office, and once I got there, I realized that it was lunchtime and that I had once again forgotten to pack a lunch. I decided to go down to the first floor (my office is on the fourth floor) to the vending maching and get a bag of chips and a coke to hold me over until I got home around 4:00. So, I went back down the stairs. I only had a five and a one, but the snack machine claims in large letters that it accepts fives. It doesn't. That meant I only had the money for either a bag of chips or a coke. I chose the chips and decided I would drink water out of the water fountain. I got me some chile-cheese fritos, and went back up the stairs.

On the way up, however, I started digging in my pockets, and I found that I had nine dimes in my coat. I was ten cents short. But when I got to my office, I did a quick search in my back-pack, and loe and behold, I found a dime. The dime was caked in a bunch of really old, and now black, gum, but it was a dime. It's kind of pathetic how happy finding that dime made me. I felt like that lady who finds a coin in that parable and then throws a party. The only difference was that I wasn't going to throw much of a party with my dollar. I was, however, going to have a coke, and that's not bad.

So, I went back down the stairs. Evidently, the vending machine doesn't accept dimes either (even though I had scraped the gum off). Or rather, it accepts nine dimes, but the tenth one doesn't count, and that left me ten cents short again. I tried to get my money back, but I was out-witted me again. It made these clicking sounds as if it were releasing my dimes one by one. Yeah...I got one dime back. And in a nice touch, a cloud of dust flew out of the coin return slot (I'm not lying about this; dust really did fly out of it).

And that's when I realized what was going on. That God guy was playing a joke on me again. That Guy's a riot sometimes. And I cried out, in mutual laughter, at the top of my lungs, "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods!!!!" I looked around to make sure no one had heard me. They had, but even though they had no clue to Whom I was speaking (and probably couldn't have cared less), they thought I was cool because I was in the English building and had just quoted Shakespeare.

I walked back up the stairs, and that's when the joke started coming toward its all-around satisfying ending. Lizz was in my office, and when I told her my story, she laughed and loaned me a dollar. One more trip down and up the stairs, and I had my lunch of chile-cheese fritos and a coke. I was tired, but the meal was pretty delicious.