Through Bloodshot Eyes

This morning, my girlfriend brought me to pick my truck up outside the bar I was at last night. I wasn't tremendously drunk, but drunk enough that I knew that if I got pulled over I'd be fucked with number 2, and I really didn't feel like making friends with the Wayne cops again.

Unfortunately, the "beer shits" came right after I started the car, and with a brutal vengeance. I probably could have made it home, but once again, I figured I'd better not risk it. I stopped over at the first strip mall on the way and walked straight into the bathroom of the Dunkin Donuts.

When I walked out, I was struck with images only the morning can produce. Don't get me wrong- as an avid drinker, the time between 6- 10 AM are the worst hours in the world for me, and I hate them with a passion. Yet even I had to admit that if you watch close enough, there's some interesting things in there for the drunken observer.

Walking out of Dunkin Donuts as I was walking in was a stunning dark haired broad, too tall for me but beautiful nonetheless. She looked like she worked in an office, or somewhere where you have to dress fancy in order to get paid; what a looker this one was. I only saw her from afar, but I was impressed anyway. She fit in well with the swarms of beautiful girls that are always going into the World Gym at the end of the mall, once again dressed far too nicely to go workout. That gym is expensive as hell, and gyms like that are gyms that nobody actually works at, but places where people go to check each other out and talk on cell phones between their 'sets'. It's more like a bar with some weight benches than an actual place to lift.

I went into this smoke shop to get a pack of cigarettes after Dunkin Donuts (where I didn't order anything...fuck them. Their coffee sucks). The place is run by a couple of Indians who I assume are husband and wife. When we were younger, we used to steal porn out of the "Adult Section" of the magazine rack that lies in the back of the store; they eventually changed the store around so they could watch it better, and I like to think it was because of our young souls. Normally I wouldn't buy smokes from these assholes, being as I don't like to support their business. These fuckers are the stereotype of what you would think Indian immigrants are, and I don't like that they perpetuate it with their "I'll sell you anything to make a buck attitude". I guess you could call them perfect capitalists, but these two that own the place are really models of classless people. Maybe I'm biased, being as they charged me $20 for a fake Zippo a couple years ago and swore up and down that it was real, only to have the wick literally burn away a couple weeks later.

I swallowed my pride though and bought smokes from them, and the women charged me $6.35 for the pack (I fucking hate Jersey sometimes). She wasn't even acknowledging that I was there, as she was concentrating on running lottery tickets through some machine the whole time, and talking to some old guy who looks like he's there every morning because he's got nothing better to do. Bitch.

I walked out of the store and into an overcast, damp New Jersey day. I lit my cigarette and began walking. Looking over towards the gym, I saw the guineas walking in from the parking lot, their designer gym bags in hand, hair all gelled up to...go workout. Their muscular fellas, but not what I would call "big", and certainly not relative to all the time they spend hitting the weights. I'm half their size and probably push bigger numbers, but hey, whatever. I figure if I gelled my hair like that to go workout, maybe I'd be cool like them. I'll consider it next time.

There's a huge green dump truck in the lot that says, "Gaeta" on the side in yellow letters, and three gigantic black dudes are leaning on it having a cigarette and eating breakfast, drinking their coffee. I can't remember whether the guy who owns the trucks is a cop or in the mob, although in New Jersey it's not like it matters. They kind of nod to me as I walk by...I'm sure I look like the guy that just picked his truck up at the bar, so I look worse than they do.

Women are all over, some with their kids, some without. Most look like "Moms" somehow. Moms irritate the fuck out of me, no matter whose mom they are, so I get the hell out of there. I remember quickly why I like the night so much- these old guys who talk for hours, these women and their rugrats, they're all inside their houses, and there's only people like me left out in the world. The people of the night are far more interesting...God I hate mornings.