It's not that I don't like people. It's just that I feel a whole lot better when they're not around.

These are the people I met tonight:

A lady with a tattoo of red lips on her forearm sitting in Dodge Neon with personalized license plates on the side of the highway. Stains on her white T-shirt, sandals in the middle of winter, and long, curly, painted fingernails with snakes on them.


"Can you check my babies out? Can you tell me if they are hurt?" she puffs.

I poke my head into the back window and look at the dirty-faced children eating soggy french fries off the backseat covered in litter.

"You kids hurt?"

"No," they giggle.

I move back to the front window, "They say they're not hurt. I asked them. Anything else?"




Next, the middle aged man who probably still lives with his mother and plays Nintendo Wii in the basement in-between raging sessions of Dungeon's and Dragon's. Sensible, Colorado-eco-friendly shoes, khaki pants that never wrinkle - the one's with the crease magically always present, and a white button-up oxford with earthy-toned sweater. His coat was off, but I assume it had patches on the elbows and was stitched of herringbone. Very classy, I'm sure his mother was proud.

Talking as if someone was pinching his nose with a thumb and forefinger, he sputtered like a lonely, elderly lady with thirty cats. "Well, he hit me pretty hard. I mean I didn't get knocked out, but he certainly drove under my car and lifted it up off the ground." he rambled and rambled, and rambled. I looked out the small window and watched the snowfall. It sure was pretty.

"Wow, now I'm dizzy. I don't know, though. Should I go?" he rambled, and rambled, and rambled. I watched the passerbyers as they weaved through the maze of emergency vehicles.

"I just don't know. I'm really dizzy. I wasn't this dizzy before, but now that I'm in an ambulance I am really dizzy. Maybe it's all the, you-know, from the accident. Let me call my primary care physician. No wait, I'd better call so-and-so, but I can't, she's pregnant, and it's snowing outside. Would you go?” He rambled, and rambled and rambled.

I was on thirty-five when I answered. I was trying to count to one hundred. "You need to make up your mind. Either come with us or don't, but we can't sit here all day."




Then the man wearing five coats, two pairs of pants, four pairs of socks, white belt with matching stained, white tennis shoes, and a mesh hat picked up from a truck stop. None of it his. In his pockets: folded paper receipts, a telephone book page of financial consultants, a cross, a Gillette Mach Three razor, combs, a lighter, cigarette butts, a wrapped up taqito from 7-11, sunglasses, a wallet reminiscent of George Castanza chained to his white belt, more papers, and finally, a pornographic picture sized to fit in his wallet and showing only the "business" part of that industry.




Then, the seedy motel with 2 drunken guys and an even drunker Polish chick "freshening up" in the bathroom. Stumbling drunk from cheap American vodka in her red sweat suit with white high-tops, she stumbled out of the bathroom as I knocked forcefully on the hollow door with the butt of my flashlight. She was as pleasant as a prostate exam and successfully pushed all my buttons. But what happens when you successfully push all my buttons? You go to detox.




Lastly, the twenty-something gangster. The one that wears the baggy jeans and the white tennis shoes with the red athletic shirt. The one with the stupid hat clocked sideways and the brim flatter than a pancake. The one that rolls around town trying to intimidate people through the tinted windows of his Dodge Stratus with two stock wheels and 2 spinners. The one that had a Venti Latte from Starbucks in the cup holder of the dash -because sometimes he just needs a little pick-me-up on a Wednesday night while he's out on the town trying to create chaos.

"Yo, what up? I wanna venti, caramel mocha latte with extra whip, foo."

"And for my peeps, they wanna cinnamon dolce latte with extra whip and a iced, chai latte, foo! West side!"