Sullivan paced outside the deli on College Avenue fuming. The sign on the door read "Back in 5 mins" (including the unnecessary quotation marks), but he had now been waiting a full fifteen minutes, according to his expedition watch (which also had a compass and a barometric altimeter accurate to a height of 30,000 feet and a depth of 30 meters - features of questionable utility to a man who rarely left Rockridge).
But Sullivan didn't need a fancy timepiece to tell him this was the third time this week he'd been kept waiting outside the deli and he vowed this would be the last time. Ever. (Other devices commercially available could remind Sullivan that he had made the same vow in March, after the owner's rude remark.)
The expedition watch was unequipped to inform Sullivan that he'd caught the eye of two bored clerks in the cookware store across the street (the short girl with the spiky red hair who thought she knew so much about baking and the tall smartass with the pony tail and geek glasses). Both of whom were now narrating their version of Sullivan's interior monologue to their mutual delight. Bets had been laid as to how long Sullivan would wait. The winner would buy lunch.
Sullivan had considered vowing never to go back to the cookware store as well. But they also sold coffee beans there, in particular the Swiss water process decaf that Sheila preferred. And if he didn't get it there, he'd have to go all the way to North Berkeley.
But Sullivan didn't need a fancy timepiece to tell him this was the third time this week he'd been kept waiting outside the deli and he vowed this would be the last time. Ever. (Other devices commercially available could remind Sullivan that he had made the same vow in March, after the owner's rude remark.)
The expedition watch was unequipped to inform Sullivan that he'd caught the eye of two bored clerks in the cookware store across the street (the short girl with the spiky red hair who thought she knew so much about baking and the tall smartass with the pony tail and geek glasses). Both of whom were now narrating their version of Sullivan's interior monologue to their mutual delight. Bets had been laid as to how long Sullivan would wait. The winner would buy lunch.
Sullivan had considered vowing never to go back to the cookware store as well. But they also sold coffee beans there, in particular the Swiss water process decaf that Sheila preferred. And if he didn't get it there, he'd have to go all the way to North Berkeley.
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Image Bo om by oddsandwich.
2 comments:
You bastard; I hadn't thought of The SIlver Ball on Telegraph in years.
Now I can't stop.
Sullivan never came in.
He did get to Mo's once in a while. You know, Lovecraft, ornithology, that kind of thing.
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