I immediately lost track of my co-workers upon entering the store. I walked over to the coffee area. A store employee--a young, pretty redhead--was tidying up the area. She was muttering to herself. My first impression was that she might be an insane person I should avoid. Then I realized she was joking. I recognized and related to her defense-mechanism sense of humor--the one that comes in handy when you're working a job that (at a certain level) you can't take seriously because, to do so, would increase your risk of suicide.

So we started chatting. She pointed to a half-eaten muffin someone had left on the counter. She explained that one of her regular customers, a Mr. Something-Something [sorry, I don't remember his name], often took bites from muffins or pastries and would just leave them on the counter. I got the impression that Mr. Something-Something was an older gentleman who just forgot about these items and that he wasn't doing this to be a dick.

I decided I really liked this funny, sarcastic redhead. But I wanted coffee. I didn't see any cups. "Do you have any medium cups?" I asked her.

"People always ask for medium cups," she said. "And we never have medium cups."

"Really? I come in here all the time. And I'm pretty sure 95% of the time, you have medium cups."

She put her hand on my shoulder. I felt all this amazing warmth flood my body. It was the first time in a long time anyone had touched me. I followed her through the cavernous store, in search of the medium cups...

..And then my goddamn alarm clocks went off. I jumped out of bed, reset the alarms to give me another twenty minutes, then dove back into bed. I always convince myself that if i get back to sleep fast enough, I can resume the last dream. That never works; it never has.

I fell asleep and never found my way back to the spacious convenience store or the pretty redhead. I got up when the alarms went off again, twenty minutes later, and got ready to go out into the dead city to my dead office to do my dumb job which (at a certain level) I can't take seriously--for obvious reasons.