Ennui and The Bread Lady

What is the meaning of life? What if I die here? Why am I soft in the middle when life is so hard?

So, I'm standing in line at the local bread and sandwich restaurant chain in Jacksonville, Fla, when the server lady comes to me and gives me -- not the welcoming faux smile I'm expecting -- a bitter glare.

I reply with a look of befuddlement, and she happily provides the details.

"Some people," she says.

"Oh?" I say.

"We get the worst customers in here."

All I want, really, is a bear claw. Mark's waiting for me at the Starbucks on the other end of the strip mall, and I haven't had my first sip of coffee for the day.

"I give this lady her tea," the fiftyish woman informs, "and she says to me -- god -- she says 'Is this green tea?'"

I wait.

"The tea is GREEN," the lady says. "I mean, God, what else would it be? Of course it's GREEN tea!"

Ah. I smoothly segue into my need of a bear claw and she nods and obliges. I ask her how long she's been working at the bread place.

"Three years!" she says. "Too long!"

"I was a waitress for five years," I commiserate while she serves it up. "It can get on your nerves."

She tells me she spent hours last night online trying to get into AT&T's online job center but couldn't get in.

"I gotta get out of here," she says.

"You should," I agree. "Good luck with that."

And I walk out with my bear claw, free of all those things. Reminded once again that I have a great job, that I'm not at my job, that I'm so lucky to be drifting from place to place with no deadlines, no place to be, no generic bread place, no AT&T.

Poor bread lady. Lucky, lucky me.