And the Full Moon Drifts Overhead…

It often fascinates me looking overhead at a bright, full moon such as tonight. To think – we have gone there and walked upon the face of our closest heavenly companion. Man has such capacity for such magnificent deeds and yet we let the happenings like Saddam’s recent execution mar our good face. Two wrongs do not make a right. The Human creature is definitely a mixture of the good and the bad with the capacity for the greatest deeds and the scariest horrors. That is why I have felt so exasperated and filled with anxiety as far as my social interactions with humans have gone over the years. We are such a fickle and willy-nilly beast; truly, the most unpredictable of animals.

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Tuesday nights finds me wondering around the grocery store as usual. A clerk comes up to me as I stand in the produce section trying to pick the perfect bunch of bananas that will last me for the week – not too ripe and just green enough to not be a mushy, brown mess come next Tuesday. He is young and looks no older than sixteen; his face pockmarked with the scars of acne.

“Sir, we have free bananas up at the service counter,” He says.

This piques my curiosity.

“Free bananas, you say?” I ask.

“Yes sir, go check up front,” He replies.

I walk over to the service counter with my almost barren buggy in hand. Sure enough, there is a big cart marked free bananas, but they are getting awfully ripe. I grab two big bunches with the intentions of making banana pudding tomorrow which is a good recipe for overly ripe bananas. I wander around the store finishing buying my groceries and checkout. The grand total comes to $61 dollars. I am pleased with the frugal amount and my judicious shopping.

I start the drive home through the old mill village homes that once housed many a blue collar family through countless seasons of winter and summer. The neighborhood is showing its age and is a festering mess of trash and crime these days. The run down old homes are a cheap bargain on the housing market inviting the less desirable of our kind. A small kitten ambles out into the road in front of me causing me to mash down upon my brakes abruptly. My anti-lock braking system almost kicks in as I serve to miss it. I put the car in park, look for oncoming traffic, and get out to check on it.

“Where are you going little fella?” I ask it as if it were a child. “You are going to get run over.”

It mews complacently as if being in the road was the safest place to play. I scoop it up and wrap it in my warm jacket and we get back into the car. It seems Maggie has a new companion. My father is going to kill me for doing this. Luckily, he is across the country in the warm clime of sunny, southern California. It seems a world away. The kitten’s future is uncertain, but she is safe for now.