mild disappointments

A pal and I decided to meet at Dos Amigos for dinner last night. Just as it was time to leave, rain restarted full force and on my ride there all the goop I had put on my hair to try to tame my humidity mane ran goopily down into my eyes. I wiped it away and first my hands and then the handle grips got slimed and slippery. I was a bit of a drippy, gelly mess by the time I arrived. I looked up and saw my friend cheerily stepping down the road under a sunburst yellow umbrella and optimism was restored.

The person who met us at the door seemed mildly disappointed. With us? With the rain? With her evening in general? Or just a non-specific existential malaise? Who knows. It turned out that it was not just her. One slightly discontented person after another came by with little messages of mild disappointment -- order quickly before the big table or your meal will take forever, there is no coffee, some desserts are not available. I ordered a burrito that was filled with soggy vegetables that had been mildly disappointed weeks ago, were raging with bitterness last week, but now had lost the will to live and had congealed into another drippy, gelly mess.

We decided to walk down to Dooney's for coffee and something sweet. When we arrived the place was empty and the waiter told us that he was about to close. Mildly disappointing for us but greatly promising for him. We stayed for a quick cold drink because we were SO thirsty after chatting with friends outside Book City about how governments, bureaucrats and business 'leaders' are disappointing the literacy community. Well, destroying it really -- we are as bitter as the burrito broccoli was last week. As we sat there, the Dooney's patio started to fill up and our mildly disappointed waiter rushed around, cursing under his breath as he wiped chairs and tables and prepared lychee martinis and double espressos for all the hopeful patrons.

After our cold drinks, we decided to pip into Kilgour's across the street and visit our friend Peter who would tell us jokes about spam and hairpieces and the disappointing Montreal Canadien run for the Stanley Cup. We like visiting Peter because sometimes, when he is on his own Stanley-Cup-worthy game, we can stop talking and just laugh our heads off. But Peter was not there, instead a jokeless guy who acknowledged, without a trace of disappointment, that we did not know him from Adam, poured us a beer and watched Pulp Fiction with the sound off. The mixed tape and the frosty beer were nice and we told our own jokes.

I rode home enjoying the warm rain and warm air, stopped at the bank machine to refill my wallet, counted my blessings all the way to my clean sheets, soft pillows, ceiling fans... and drifted off dreaming of good friends and good times past and future.