The Chain

Yesterday Dave woke up at about 3pm. He was late for work, and he knew it, but still got online instead of getting ready. He hated his job, his apartment, and his desktop computer that usually didn't work, but he was too lazy to do anything about it. It was easier not to. The computer worked this time though so he killed about half an hour checking email, trying to figure out what sulfamic acid was (he'd only ever heard of sulfuric before), and watching some stupid videos on Utube. He didn't really like people much either, but still randomly read some blogs every now and then so he'd have something to make fun of later while he was slacking off at work. On this day it was a blog by some guy in Texas about wierd things like books and dreams and other hippy things. Plenty of fodder for the day. He signed off and got ready to go catch the bus into Boston Proper figuring that by the time he got there he'd only be 45 minutes late. "Whatever," he thought. On the way out of his apartment he heard the phone ring, checked the ID, and seeing that it was his boss he ignored it and walked out the door. "Whatever," he thought again.
Gina hung up the phone cussing. Guys like Dave pissed her off to no end. Every day coming in late. Every day having a sorry attitude, forcing everyone to listen to his woe-is-me stories, and making fun of everything unfortunate enough to attract his attention. He was the kind of guy that made managing a restaurant miserable. The good employees usually turn over pretty fast because they're using the job as a stepping stone to something else, but guys like Dave just had no ambition. To them everything was good enough. Gina walked out of the office up to the front doors handing a stack of ones to the bartender and a sleeve of paper cone-cups to the busser on the way. She thought that maybe today she'd fire Dave. She hated doing it, otherwise he'd have been gone a long time ago, but there's only so much benefit of the doubt you can give someone. Passing the host stand and getting an ill-concealed eye roll from the new hostess, Gina fished the key to the front door out of her pocket. She openned the door, said hello to the young couple waiting outside, and handed their little girl a peppermint as they walked past her towards the scowling hostess. "It's gonna be a long day," she mumbled.
Meredith liked peppermints a lot but her parents would never let her have them before lunch so she tried her best to hide it. Her mom saw though and took it away quick. She hated the Italian places. Their food was wierd. The only thing good they had was spagetti but the sauce was wrong. It had big chunks of veggies and stuff like that in it. The guy behind the bar winked at her and she tried to wink back but both her eyes kept closing instead of just one. It made her walk into a wall because she kept them closed too long. That made her mom mad but it really didn't hurt. Dad was on the phone still talking to Grandma. He'd been on since they left the house but only told Mer to hush when she asked to talk. Finally though he let her talk and Grandma said that she was excited to see her over the holidays and that she had already made all the Christmas cookies. She said Grandpa was excited too but he was asleep right now so he couldn't talk. Mer was pretty sure that you couldn't be excited and asleep at the same time but she really didn't know. Maybe you could if you were old. Anyway she had to get off the phone so she said bye and starting coloring her placemat. That was the other thing about this place she didn't like. They only gave you two colors and if you asked for more it took them forever to bring them back. How can you color Santa with only blue and green?
Grandma hung up the phone and went to see who was at the door. It had been ringing for the past few minutes so she guessed it was important. It turned out to be the delivery boy for the grocery store. His name was Ted and for the past year, since Grandpa had his fall, he had been bringing them their groceries once a week. It was really very nice of them. The manager of the store had set it up when he found out that her eyes weren't good enough to be driving anymore and their neighbor had been bringing her to the store. Everyone had been so helpful. Grandpa was getting better though and it wouldn't be long before he could start doing the driving again. The order Ted brought this time was a big one. It was all the stuff they needed for Christmas dinner so he helped her carry it to the kitchen, talking the whole time about the new book he was writing and how he was gonna get famous with it. She hoped he was right. He was a nice boy. She really didn't understand all this fantasy business he always talked about, but he seemed to enjoy it and it was all he talked about. She didn't have much to say on the subject but that seemed ok with him. Some people just need someone to listen. She was good at that. She'd been doing it her whole life. Ted finished bringing in the groceries and said thanks on his way out as she handed him a tip. He always told her not to tip him, but she always did anyway.
Ted hopped into his old truck and gunned the engine for a few minutes after starting it up. The lump of steel was temperamental so he had to start her up just right or she'd putter out after fifteen feet. He needed a new one bad, he knew, but to accomplish that he needed a lot more money than he had. He was praying that the manuscript he just sent to the publisher would go through for once. He had already been rejected ten times but on the last try, after he had send in the first three chapters, he'd gotten a call from them asking to see the whole thing. He was excited. No one had ever called for any reason. They had always done their dirty work with letters before. It made him think that maybe this time he had a chance. He drove home as fast as the could so he could check his answering machine and see if he had any calls from the publisher. He got to the house and ran inside only to see that there were no messages on the machine. He thought maybe it was too early. He'd sent them the manuscript only a month ago. Maybe it took longer than that for someone to get around to reading it. He sat down at the computer to search the web for awhile. After thirty minutes or so he would get around to writing. It always took him awhile to clear his head and get to work. He stumbled across a blog entry on the same service he used that had been written by a guy in Texas. It wasn't great, but he agreed with a lot of the things the guy said about writing. They all say the same things though. Some writers make it and some don't. Sometimes it didn't seem like it mattered whether they were good at it or not. He hoped the guy in Texas would make it. He left a comment on the guy's blog saying as much. He thought that maybe he would start his own blog. Maybe people would read it, maybe not. "Whatever," he thought. Life's too short to worry about what some stranger somewhere else thinks. It would be nice if they thought good things about what you were doing though. Some blogs are just not very interesting though.