The Long Trip Home

If it's not nice out I stay in the office ten minutes past the end of work (4:30), because my bus doesn't come until 4:42. But if it's nice weather I like to leave on the dot and walk to the earlier bus stop. It gets me a little exercise and also a better shot of finding a seat on the bus. I don't have to rush, but I can't dawdle either.

Yesterday my special lady asked me if I could pick up some tomatoes. There is a vegetable stand on the way, but I agreed on the condition that there aren't many people in line, cause if I spend more than two minutes on the process I'll miss my bus. There was only one, so I got in line. While I waited I calculated how many tomatoes I could afford, because I only had 1.92 lits cash: 1.92 lits/6.99 lits for tomatoes = 274.6 grams. "275 grams of tomatoes, please." Why not round up?

That's the first time this babuska got such an exact order, but I just gave her all my coins and luckily four tomatoes came to 280 grams and she let me have them. And then just as I took the bag my bus drove by. But then it stopped at a red light! I jogged over (I can't actually run in a suit, it would look too ridiculous), and as I began to rap on the door the bus drove away.

Now I started walking back the way I came. Why? Because across the intersection from my regular bus stop is the Chinese place that sells beer cheap, so I can have a brewsky while I wait. After I decided to do this I found out from my special lady that the next bus is in just 23 minutes, so I had to hurry (I couldn't change my mind because too much had gone wrong already, plus I had to take a whiz).

A very nice Vilkmergės dark beer costs just 3.50 at the Chinese place. It was very tasty--I noticed an old man reading a book and drinking one on my way in. On my way out eight minutes later he had not made any progress though.

Standing at the bus stop waiting I reached into my overcoat pocket and literally thought to myself, "what the hell is that? Did I bring tangerines to work for lunch and forget about them?! Oh, yeah...the tomatoes." As soon as I got on the bus I realized a mistake: my second bus runs more seldom than my first bus, which isn't a problem if my special lady can pick me up on the way home from picking the kid up at kindergarten, but today she can't....hmmm. I could have had two leisurely beers at the Chinese place instead of pounding one in six minutes.

Now what? Well I'll have to get another beer to make up for that. I get off the bus at the most convenient spot to walk home, which also happens to be near a grocery store. I pop in there and don't want to get a bottle, I won't really have a chance to return it, so the deposit will end up jacking the price up quite a bit, 15% as it turns out, because instead I ended up getting a can of Donner Premium for 1.69 lits. It was okay.

On the walk from there to the next stop I took another whiz in the woods and found a trash pile next to somebody's driveway. The next stop was the Baltic Petroleum gas station where I bought a bottle Švyturys, because at 2.44 with deposit it was still cheaper than any of the cans, and it's a fine beer.

The plan was to drink it on the way to Norfa, but by then the kindergarten parents meeting was over and I was close enough to home that my special lady picked me up instead. Oh well, it was a good run.

I wonder what the people at the bank think. I charged three beers on my debit card in three different parts of the city within 90 minutes. Here's a map of my trek:

A. Office/Main Bus Stop

B. Vegetable Stand/Tomatoes

C. Chinese Place/Vilkmergės

D. Grocery Store/Donner

E. Baltic Petrolium/Švyturys

F. Home/Roast Pork Loin