random thoughts – Day 1,459 – (Friday) – brights spots on a dreary day

A light drizzly rain was falling from the gray sky and the morning traffic was heavier than the usual Friday volume. I worried that word has gotten out that the Friday commute is easier and everyone jumped on it. Or maybe I’m just paranoid and it was just that I left the house five minutes earlier and that made the difference. The traffic cluster in the intersection outside the parking garage as I entered was cleared to the normal Friday ghost-town levels by the time I had parked and walked out.

For months, two people have been stationed outside the garage with a literature rack of Jehovah’s Witness materials. They are there nearly every Wednesday and Friday, and probably other days that I'm not downtown. We always exchange pleasantries and quick observations about the weather as I walk past and it’s quite nice. Today’s weather note was that it was a bit chilly.

The gray drear outside the office window.

This morning, out of nowhere, the woman asked if I had any food allergies (I don’t) then if I like molasses (I probably do). She then offered me a homemade molasses cookie, wrapped in plastic wrap that magically appeared in her hand from who knows where. She said it was something they were giving to the “regulars” they see all the time. She said it would go great with coffee, and I sort-of joked that “there is coffee at my office and it’s why I keep going back.” 

When I was a kid, my brother and I were in the park and a teenager offered us candy. My brother, always the rebel and rule breaker, refused it. The candy was free and I took it and I ate it. My brother was horrified. Mom said don’t take candy from strangers. What if it was drugged? He was going to tell our parents and I would be in a lot of trouble. I was stunned that the kid who skipped Sunday School and hung around in the park near our church waiting for me to get out so we could walk home together was following a parental rule.

Apparently, I can still be bought with treats and like to live on the edge, because this morning I took the cookie from the sort-of stranger. While eating it, I hoped that accepting it hadn’t activated some sort of unspoken agreement or opened a portal to a cult. Just to cover bases, I told a colleague that if I keeled over, it was probably the cookie from the church lady. I wonder how many cookies it will take before I discover I'ved joined the church, and also I wonder if there are cookies at the services.

It was gray and dreary all day. The bright spot from the free cookie did not cause hallucinations or death, but it couldn’t stop the grayness. The view outside the office window was gray all day. Cocktails and snacks after work with colleagues was another bright spot. Delicious pizza bright, which is even better than cookie bright, because pizza slices were larger than the cookie, and there is now half a pizza in the fridge.