winners

I was waiting in line at the Cub foods customer service counter. The cashier had forgotten to process my coupons, and I'd be damned if I'd pay full price for those Naked juices: two of them were supposed to be free. Harried employees scurried about behind the counter resolving complaints and paying out lottery winnings. I waited.

The man in front of me wore a tattered blue coat. His face was craggy and pitted. I watched him chat with the cashier, wondered why the delay. A man in a crisp white shirt eventually approached, and I observed with increasing awe as he counted money into the bedraggled man's hand.

“One, two, three, four, twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, five hundred!”

The man took the money and hurried off. I was pretty sure I knew how he planned to spend it.

“A lot of people won money from scratch-offs,” I later commented to D***, who'd gone to pick up milk. “One guy won five hundred dollars”.

“He really needed it, too,” said D***.

“Yeah. I mean, did you see him?” Probably went straight to the liquor store, I wanted to add.

“He was in line in front of me when I was getting the milk,” D*** replied. “He bought a giant bouquet of flowers”.

Open letter to Californians

Dear mom,
Although the snow has melted here and I no longer gasp and shiver when I step outside, the trees are barely budding yet and the few green blades of grass are still quite overwhelmed by last year's leftover brown. I long for certain signs of spring: a shower of leaves on the trellis there by my bedroom door; daffodils competing valiantly with your small patch of lettuce; our house filling gradually with fur.... Here, we never have those summer days when all you can imagine possible is to settle by the nearest river and eat watermelon. I miss my home, mom. Please send avocados.