Fleas

8-25-23

I’ve been working out a Starbucks for almost four weeks straight because the office I was working at got infested with fleas and the pest control company is majorly shitting the bed.

We found out on a Wednesday morning in the middle of an all-hands meeting. One of the recruiters peeked his head into our office, said “hey—the building is being evacuated because of fleas,” then took off.

My coworker who also trained me drove me to the Starbucks down the road since Marie had the car for the day. We only have one car and since we live at her parents’ house now our commute is like 90 minutes one way.

It came out that the fleas got in the building because some of the workers on the fourth floor were petting the stray dogs at the baseball field behind the building. They even brought them in at one point.

Since then I’ve been going to the Starbucks by Marie’s work. The wifi is free and reliable, I only have to buy the cheapest thing to hang all day, and it’s better than working from home with the in-laws. I’m grateful they can watch our kids but it makes my work a bit more difficult. Beyond that I don’t want Marie to have to drive three hours a day by herself.

It’s not a bad place to work. I get free refills on my cheap drink so I end up drinking about two or three over the course of the day. Plus, it’s not so bad. Some of the people there know my name. And a few others know my order.

Being a regular is a nice feeling. When I realized they knew me I had the thought that, even if I don’t know these people on a personal level, at least one person will think of me when I go back to the office. Out of all the strangers we meet in this world how many can we say we remember? How many can we say we saw enough to become familiar?

Being known isn’t so bad, I suppose.

Love you kitty, mom, dad, sis, Marie, Amelia, Emerson
-E.B.