We’ll Move Down South

The escalators just inside The City Center weren’t running Tuesday morning.

I didn’t need them, of course, having been walking on my own since the tender age of 11 months, but the sight of the non-escalating escalators gave me pause.

I stop.

Hammer time.

Since childhood, deserted streets have been my friends. Do I see zombies? I do not. I see freedom. This may shock you, but I’ve got a pretty sturdy little imagination on me and it absolutely loves scenarios like this…

I pause to survey the scene.

It is 6:45 a.m. and the end of the world that we've been hearing so much about has finally happened.

I am, of course, on time for work.

I move in my usual direction, like a cow leaving the milk barn and heading to pasture, in search of coffee. Eight years I’ve been doing this. Something’s not right, and it’s not just the non-escalating stairs.

It is then that I realize that there’s no line at the Starbucks.

Dizzy with pleasure, I walk in like I own the joint. “’Mornin’, Joe,” I say to the coffee dispenser. I help myself to a cup, jauntily throwing a quarter in the tip jar. “There ya go,” I mutter. “Although I’m still unclear as to why I tip you...”

Lawlessly, I cram my pockets full of Splenda packets just because I can.

I take a seat, prop my feet up on the table in front of me. I am making lazy plans to head out to a Winnebago dealership and drive one south when it occurs to me that the escalator has started up...

I shake my head, the daydream ruined, and my eyes focus on the moving stairs. In reality, I have not gotten my coffee yet. There is a man in a blue workman’s style uniform in front of me.

“Mornin’,” Pete says. You can tell it’s Pete because that’s what his shirt says.

“Got the steps moving again, I see,” I say.

He nods, almost bashfully. I smile at him to show him I mean no harm and proceed toward the Starbucks.

And I feel cheated when I see that there’s a line.