one of my reps came by to help me put the order away
he got a piece of glass in his hand
i felt bad
but i was pretty sure it wasn't my fault
i've been pretty careful to clean up any breakages
but
he thought it came from a case
probably got broken in the truck
i've been cutting myself on non-sharp things, lately
nasty cardboard paper cuts
tearing my skin up on sharp corners of plastic signs
they hurt
but there's not much damage done
since the edges are rough, they heal fast
but
i guess by way of commiserating
or, something like that
i told him about when i was a kid
we lived in this apartment complex
between the apartments
and the baby giant [corner store]
was a bar
it was the kind of bar
where everyone smashes their beer bottles in the parking lot
i don't know what kind of bar that is
but
my daddy sent me to the baby giant
regular
to buy him cigarettes
this is back when you could send your seven year old to buy cigarettes
i only wore shoes
when somebody was making me
so i always walked barefoot across the broken glass
so
pretty regularly
i'd get pieces of glass embedded in the calluses of my feet
and they'd just stay there
until they grew up to the surface
and i picked them out
it was kinda cool
occationally a little uncomfortable
but absolutely no big deal
to which he said
that's metal as hell
which i kinda liked
