I had a strange morning.  I felt a little melancholic.  It's not that unusual for me this time of year.  I'm not talking depressed, but melancholic — that "sadness that has taken on lightness" that Calvino talks about.  Autumn, with its long shadows and honey sunsets is generally a contemplative time for me.  And whenever there's time to think there's time for a little sadness.

But I'll admit there's always a chance of wandering off, too far into the dark to see the lightness at all.  (I know Calvino was talking about buoyancy — a sadness that floats — but a mixed metaphor works here — you sink into the darkness under the weight of depression — but melancholy is a kind of pain that bears you along somehow.)    

Some days I'm not sure I can stand another winter here.  I don't know where else I would go — there's a place in my head, where it's sunny and 78°, there's a large body of water right outside my door, the men are manly, tall, dark, handsome, and preferably uncut, and speak in husky Slavic accents.  And when I tell them I'm originally from Indiana, they think I'm a cowboy. 

I think it's somewhere in Croatia. 

Until I can find out for sure, I'm stuck with Boston.  But there are more and more days when I feel like it might be time to cash in my chips, buy a little boat, and set sail for the Dalmation Coast.  It's the little things that do it, too.  I mean, it's not that I don't have friends here, or that I hate my job, or can't make ends meet. 

In fact, there's a lot to like about Boston.  Despite my constant griping, it is bikable.  There's art and culture enough.  New England is ridiculously picturesque in places.  But then there's Central Square.  You know?  I mean, it's a slightly updated version of some scene from Bruegel.  It's like the last 500 years never happened.  Right in the middle of Cambridge!  The city should sell tickets.  Pioneer Village has got nothing on this.

Central's just the most colorful example of urban medievalism in Metro Boston.  There are quaint little pockets of it here and there.  Yesterday in the Fenway I decided to drop into the Au Bon Pain across from the Christian Science Mother Church for a quick bite.  I remember when Au Bon Pain used to be sort of a decent little sandwich place.  I don't think the food's bad to this day, but they've got a skeezy vibe now.  The one in the Fenway definitely does.

Yesterday morning there was a woman at the sandwich counter at the same time I was, and while I waited on my sandwich, pacing around the soup counter, I noticed the clerk at the register, a handsome young Garifuna, I'm assuming by the accent, standing right there out in the open massaging his crotch and leering at her behind.  (She was in no way encouraging him, by the way — as far as I could tell, she hadn't even seen him, though he was right out in the open.)

When I got up to the counter he actually had his hand under his apron.  He was still leering at the young woman at the sandwich counter, licking his lips and massaging his dick, and looked understandably a little put-out at my interrupting his hot mid-morning JO session.  I was paying by debit card, and, apparently he was right handed, because, he had to pull the hand that was down his pants out, instead of his left, which was free, to take my debit card from me. 

Yeah.  That's what I mean by skeezy. 

Needless to say, he didn't thank me for my purchase, nor did he apologize for skeezing up my card with his precum.  And I'll admit, I didn't know what to do.  It just did not compute.  It was really sort of off the scale.  I mean, here I was, just enjoying my little day out and about, thought I'd grab an innocent little sandwich, a cup of yogurt.  And then this?  I don't even know what just happened.  I mean, what do you call that?  Is there a name for what just happened to me?

It was one of those "do I really have to take this?  Everywhere?  All the time?" type moments.  Maybe it was another Holden Caulfield incident.  You know, here all you want is a sandwich — which once seemed like a fairly reasonable thing — but you get to the counter and they're like, "would you like a little fuck-you to-go with that?"  Um, no thaks, but could you smear some smegma on my debit card?

I didn't take my card back and lick it off the magnetic strip right there in front of him.  Like I said, it took me a little off-guard.  Although I don't know why it should have, really.  It's precisely for moments like these that I carry disinfectant wipes at all times.  Because it's no longer like your mother used to say — "you don't know where their hands have been" — nowadays you pretty much know.  It's probably not a bad idea to wipe down your credit and debit cards regularly.

I mean, what are you gonna do?  Unfortunately you have to eat and you have to shop.  There's really no way around it.  Unless you move to a compound in Waco, which seems a little extreme, you just have to get used to it.  I understand the whole "service with a smile" thing is over.  It's over.  I get that.  I even get why.  I wouldn't want to work in retail or food service myself. 

I don't expect people to smile, chat, or make small talk. I thought I'd adjusted my expectations to the prevailing social reality.  But it looks like I'm in for more adjustments.  

As I was leaving, I passed a pudgy middle-aged guy with bad hair and a big backpack on who'd been lurking conspicuously around the condiment counter when I came in, trying to stuff napkins in his pockets surreptitiously, though anyone could see what he was up to, and no one seemed to care.  He would dart out from behind a pillar, look around nervously, snatch a napkin out of the dispenser, and then dart back. Like he was Special Ops, or something.  Like this was Mission Impossible: Au Bon Pain. 

God knows what vast conspiracy was playing out in his head.  I was there for about fifteen minutes, and I'd say he'd managed to filch twenty or thirty napkins.  It seemed a little labor intensive for the reward, but what do I know? I mean, when it's the guy stealing paper napkins who's afraid of getting caught  while the guy working the register can't be bothered to stop masturbating when he's ringing you up...  did I not get the memo?  Did I miss that meeting?

Of course, I can't say how I would have felt about the whole thing if the counter help had been leering at me instead.  Maybe like a sweepstakes winner.  I like to think I'd hold out for a little flirtation before the hand goes down the pants, but who knows.

I say, bring on the dancing robots.