A Day In Nobody's Life- a One-Off

 I woke up at seven...ish. I may have snoozed a few times. It was break- Thanksgiving break, to be specific- but I had stuff to get done. 

Turning on my phone, I checked my Notes app as I sat down at my desk. I had a shopping list in there for that morning that looked something like this-

• Oranges (3)

• New Wireless Earbuds (the old ones broke the night before)

• Monster Energy drink (0 sugar, preferably.)

• Send in the camera for processing (I always prefer to have a disposable camera on hand.)

With that, I turned off my phone and tossed on some clothes. It was cold that day, maybe 30-something degrees, so it was probably something warm. A sweatshirt or a puffy-coat, with black joggers and, because I had no other shoes on hand, some white sandals. 

My toes would just have to freeze a little for a couple minutes as I walked to King Soopers and Walgreens. Hopefully I’d keep a good pace

As I walked down the stairs after grabbing my purse on my way out of my room I greeted my grandparents warmly. I grabbed an orange as my aunt wished me a good morning. 

“What do any of y’all need?” I asked nobody in particular. “I’m off to the store for the oranges.”

My mom scowled. “We don’t need oranges.”

“But I ate one last night. We had three, and I thought we needed three.”

“We only needed one for zest. But I do need garlic, though.”

“Okay. I’ll go grab that. Anything anyone else needs?”

Everyone- my grandparents, my aunt, and my dad- just coming out of his office- all muttered various nos asI juiced the orange. It didn’t make that much juice- maybe a cup, and I split it with my aunt, pouring it between two glasses. I chose the thin ones so it would look like more. 

I finished my juice, petting my aunt’s dog and then mine before I went to the coat closet and put on my black puffy coat and a beanie hat. I didn’t think to check the weather report, though. 

As I walked out to the garage and opened the door I regretted not getting gloves. I assumed it’d be better once I was out there. 

I was wrong. 

I couldn’t even get my bike out of the garage, for starters. I had to lift it a little by the front handles to scoot it between my parents’ car and my aunt’s. After that little escapade I was on my way. Once I got to the first intersection my breathing felt thin, but that wasn’t important. I crossed over to the Walgreens and it was completely empty. I walked to the back, maybe twenty paces from the main door to the photo counter. An old lady- an employee- scuttled over to the counter. 

“Hey, hon,” she said. 

“Hi, ma’am. I’m looking to get these photos developed. Do y’all do that here?”

“Yeah. Just take one of these little bags, sign there, and be back in a week.”

And so I did. It was quicker than I thought, and I was away to the rest of the store within maybe two minutes. 

It’s strange to be in the middle of a Walgreens in the middle of a nowhere town in the middle of the morning the day before Thanksgiving. I’ll have you know, those places get creepy with no-one in there watching them.

I had two things I was looking for here at first- earbuds and a Monster Energy. Thing is, all the earbuds greatly outpriced my paltry fifteen bucks I brought along and considering how cold it was outside I had a feeling a Monster would do me more harm than good. 

So I left the store holding nothing. People talk about how awkward it is to leave a store not holding anything, but I just thought all those people were idiots. 

Then again, I thought a lot of people were idiots. 

I walked out and grabbed my bike from the rack outside the Walgreens. Even within the five-ish minutes I spent in the store the handles had already grown freezing cold. 

I unlocked the bike chain and hopped on. As I got back to that same intersection I saw a few snowflakes fall. Then, a few more. 

As I biked across the crosswalk more began to fall as I neared the King Soopers across the way. I hopped off my bike, re-locked it to their bike rack and walked in. Halfway through the doorway I realized I still had my helmet on. Because of course I did. 

After taking off my gosh darn helmet I made my way inside. I took a left to the produce and grabbed what my dear old mother had asked for- a hefty bag of peeled garlic with a blue label and white writing. I walked out to the self-checkout and paid in cash. I probably should have asked my mom for money so I wasn’t paying for literal garlic solo. But here I was, and it didn’t cost all that much. I’m just a complainer. 

I didn’t take a bag- I thought that would just make riding my bike harder, so I just stuffed the bag of garlic into my inside pocket of that black puffy jacket from earlier. I knew it’d be useful. 

So I biked home. It took me eight minutes, max. I lived super close by. I squeezed my bike back into the garage and propped it up against the wall. 

As I walked in the door I could smell what my mom and grandma had been cooking- salty, sweet, everything coming at me all at once in a burst of warm air from inside the house. 

I walked over to the counter, my aunt calling me to begin making the bread. Ten minutes later a perfect lump of Almost Bread stood between the two of us and I looked up to the window across the way in the living room and-

The snow was collecting. 

THE SNOW WAS COLLECTING!
It had been- let’s see…- 273 days since Colorado- or, at least the Denver suburbs- had seen measurable snow. I popped out my phone and took a video. My dog and my aunt’s dog went out to frokick a little and I sent the video to a friend. 

Mara. 

She had been having a tough time recently, going through things I couldn’t even imagine, but I still had these mixed feelings about her. It felt like she’d talk to me so warmly for a week or two and the next she wouldn’t even read my texts. 

It probably didn’t help that I lived halfway across the country. 

So, when I sent it to her, she was in the middle of a No Talking stage and I wasn’t expecting anything back. However, she replied:

OK. 

Nice. 

That was...underwhelming. I wanted to see some reaction from her, something more than just a societally-expected mini-reply. So, I sent another video, this time of the bread, flopping around the mixer as my aunt and I realized we added a bit too much flour for our own good. 

But Mara, because this is Mara we’re talking about, went from 0 to 100 so fast I couldn’t even comprehend it at first. 

We went from a conversation about bread to one where, without any previous context, said this-

I miss your voice. 

And I still haven’t responded to her.