Morning begins with the onset of spring intoxication. First stop is to drop my bike off in town for a tune-up. The bike shop is dangerously close to FIW, and within moments I am inside seated by a breezy open window strumming a finely appointed rosewood Martin and sliding ever deeper into seasonal drunkedness. So drunk in fact that I've hazarded to carry my checkbook into such a place, and then, lo and behold, I am writing in said checkbook and handing it to the lanky, bearded, bespectacled boy standing behind the counter who examines the shakey scrawl through his Ben Franklins and then nods and smoothly exhales the singular word -- "awesome." Am totally blotto now, and on my way to work, so I'll have to pick up the guitar later, if I remember buying it, so it's back out onto the sidewalk and a brisk, inebriated pace toward the post office where there is a package being held for me. Things are slow at the PO. Is this the end of the line to St. Peters? The line is being held up by a crazy man. He seems hell-bent on wringing every ounce of service he can out of the US Postal Service. It is really killing my buzz. He is mailing a letter. He requests detailed descriptions of every service level. All the pros and cons. He hypothesizes with the clerk various mailing senarios. We, in line, in purgatory, have had enough. We are burning a hole through his back with our laser stares while he pays with dimes, nickels and pennies plucked one-by-one from a squeeze coin purse. Finally the transaction is over. Wait. No, it isn't. Just as he is about to step aside from the counter, with me poised on tip toes to take his place, he asks for some stamps--but not just some stamps--he asks for the stamp catalog, through which he begins to peruse at his leisure while whistling tunelessly, oblivious of the riot fomenting behind him. Everything goes all red, then white. I am quite sober now. On the bus a boy climbs on board just as we are pulling away from the stop. He had been sprinting. He is gasping heavily like a landed fish. His hands are planted deep in his pockets searching for fare money. All he has is a 5. He wheezes out a request to the passengers for change. A girl in a floppy purple elizabethan hat volunteers some singles. Then she finds she only has 4 and reneges her offer. I hand the boy 4 quarters. He can barely breathe. The girl's expression clouds over as she stares at her crumpled bills. "Oh, I could've just gave you a dollar." She sinks into her seat and into her book.