2001-08-08 - 2:00 a.m.

Well, if there was anyone at that store who didn't recognize me before today, they will now.

As I headed over there at lunch today through the humid air, blasted by hot wind and watching the big thick gray clouds looming on the horizon, my head started analyzing the weather, feeling the rain coming that wouldn't hit for another twenty minutes or so and thinking about what causes it. That's right, I'm a meteorology dork. But don't worry, I won't go into it here.

But anyway, because I was thinking about the weather, when I got into the store my head wasn't in the game at all, but I didn't realize it because, well, as I said, my head wasn't in the game. I did have the clarity to go get my drink before ordering the food, though. I always forget to do this, so just as I'm getting my lunch I have to cross the store and get it before they can ring me up, and today I remembered.

So I went, got my drink, a Nantucket Nectars Kiwi Berry drink in a glass bottle, and headed over to the display area for today's meals of the day. The store is rather small, so you kind of have to maneuver past customers to get through. As I swerved a bit to get around a wooden pillar and some customers on my left, I didn't notice the two and a half foot high wooden table on my right.

You know, there's this clichéd idea that time seems to slow down when something bad is happening to you. That most definitely happened to me here. All I knew was that at the moment my hand was on one side of the table it was holding a glass bottle and didn't hurt and when it was on the other side it wasn't holding a glass bottle and did hurt. I had time as it the floor, to think about how I had been holding it just before I wasn't holding it any more, and realize just how bad this was going to be. Flashes of tricks books and science shows from my childhood spun through my head, reminding me that a cylinder, while quite strong when forces are put on it on the base or top, isn't very good at all at standing up to forces on their sides. Images of glass things falling on the floor and smashing flew through my head, from the coffee cup in "The Usual Suspects" to the safe plastic bottle in the "Plastics make it possible" commercial. And while I hadn't had time to look down at it yet, an inner countdown went by in my head telling me when the bottle would hit the floor until that numberless, instinctual timer hit zero, or whatever it hit, as until the zero point it had been numberless, and I heard, through the complete lack of any other sound that was reaching my ears at the time, a muffled *whump* at my feet with a tiny tinkling sound over it that sounded like it was coming from miles below the floor.

I looked down to see the bottle collapsing on itself and the juice, completely uninhibited by the glass that had been keeping it in control for so long, blast to the sides in seemingly random directions. My hand, which had been in an upswing the whole time as I instinctually was pulling the pain up to my chest to hold it still rose as my eyes moved up to meet the various pairs of eyes from customers and employees alike that had all turned my way.

I heard an "are you all right, David?" from one of the girls behind the counter. At first I was wondering who knew my name, then I remembered she took my order yesterday and had read my name off the nametag I'd forgotten to take off (I later learned her name was Heather, but I didn't know it then), then I wondered why she was asking me if I was all right. That's when I remembered she just heard glass smashing and I was clutching my hand in pain.

"Oh! Yeah, I'm all right," I said, opening and closing it to see if I'd hurt it too badly, which I hadn't. It hurt, but I'd damaged my pride more than my hand. "Don't worry about it, I'll clean it up," she said, and she started over, followed by a woman who I believe is either a manager or the owner or something like that. I hate people doing stuff like that for me, but I knew that was the only way it could be. It wasn't like I was visiting someone and spilled something and they were cleaning it up for me, this is a business, and they can't have the customers handling broken glass, whether or not it was their fault it's there. So, powerless to do anything else, I stood there and checked for any errant pieces of glass that made it outside the inner radius of the destruction, then just kind of made idle conversation, as I felt like I should at least do that much, especially after Owner Lady left, and so I thought like I'd be a real jerk to just let this girl crouch there cleaning up the mess I'd just made while I just went about my way, ordering my food. Besides, she was the one who was supposed to be back there taking my order anyway, so even if I wanted to I couldn't have. Not that I would have, I'm just stating a fact.

So I'm standing there, feeling like an idiot, and stating that a few times, when she tells me I shouldn't. At least it was only a juice. Apparently she once dropped an $80 piece of Italian pottery that a customer had already paid for, so a $1.30 juice is *nothing* to be worried about. If anything, I guess I felt better about that. Kind of put things in perspective.

And so, all things taken care of, I ordered my food, got a new drink (a Fresh Samantha in a plastic bottle), and went to pay. Heather rung me up, saying my name again, and that's when I realized just how much I really don't like the sound of the name David. I've always been Dave. Some people call me David, but they really trail off in the second syllable, so it's like a syllable and a quarter, instead of two distinct syllables. But she was saying it very distinctly. DaviD. It felt so wrong. I think I need to say something tomorrow. I'm Dave. Despite what every nametag I've ever had made for me at a job, my name is Dave. I put David on job applications and other official things, but no one in a non-formal setting regularly calls me that. Have to do something about that. I mean, it feels good to have someone else outside of work comfortable with referring to me by my first name, but… guh. It just doesn't sound like me. David.

I don't know, anyway, my point is, if there was anyone at that store who didn't recognize me before, they will now. I'm Butterfingers.

And I'm up too late. This "being online again" thing is going to be bad for me once again, I can tell.