Anybody Need a Rooster?

Monday Pants:  1. pants that have been washed over the weekend, and are uncomfortably tight on the day of their first new wear,usually on Monday. 2.  phrase to denote unpleasantness or discomfort 3. implies that something is mundane.  

Here in my little room in Tennessee where the leaves are beginning to fall and the weather is beginning to bite with cold, I am in a perpetual existential crisis.  And to be honest, I am just plain lonely.  And in this moment, I have come to the conclusion that there is no point in feeling sorry for myself.  It is up to me to remedy the situation.  Therefore.  I begin this blog in order to entertain myself and in order to feel that I am sharing my ridiculous stories with someone.  Who knows why humans have a natural urge to TELL of what they experience. It is an undeniable part of all of us.  It is an undeniable part of me, that I know. SO I hereby RELEASE. I hope someone enjoys receiving these throws of solitude. I will enjoy writing them. 

And the stories begin...

The Fruit Market where I currently travail 6 days of the week is a constant source of stories for me. It is often an insane asylum. Often a comedy show. Often a place of tears. A place of stinking rotting fruit.  I place of old appalachian farmers I whose speech I love to try and decipher.   It is a place in which I have learned much about myself and about the nature of existence (a rather large reward to be getting for 7 dollars an hour).  If I let it, this "Horn of Plenty" can be a great muse for my writing.

 

Title: The Rooster Man. 

I am standing at my post behind the cash register, performing my most meditative task: breaking green beans.  Snap. Srrrrip. Snip. Snip. Snip. Snap. Srrrip. Snip. Snip. Snip.  My fingers know the drill.  and they perform it fairly deftly after having broken close to bushel of green beans week since the month of August.  Most people are too lazy to break up their own damn green beans.  It never dawns on them that this Snap. Srrrip. Snip. Snip. Snip. mantra of freshness is so green and new.  They pay two dollars more for my already snapped beans in order to save themselves five to ten minutes of non-existent time.  My bean mantra shifts through my head once more when an elderly man with coke-bottle glasses and a plaid shirt ambles in the door.  The majority of my customers are elderly and this man is no different But this man appears to be oddly alert.  Here is not a dim-witted man.  No siree. Here is a man who knows why he came in the store.  And he is headed strait for me and my bean breakdown.

"Hey gal. You know anyone need's a rooster?"

I am a bit befuddled and think I have not heard the man quite correctly.

"Um. Scuse me?"

"I said you know anyone need's a rooster!"

"Well. I can't say that I do, sir." 

"Well. You need a rooster?"

"Um. No sir. I sure don't."

"Well. I got me three damn roosters that I ain't got no use fur. I don't rightly know what ta do with' em. They been cockidoodlin me to death at four damn thirty in the mornin and I like to snapped one's neck this here mornin for my wife could stop me. So I decieded ta come ta town an see if I could find anyone's in the market fur a rooster."

"Is that right? Well, I'll ask around to see if I know anyone who needs one. Ok?"

I must mention here that the other majority of people who enter the store are clinically insane. I chocked this amusing number up to being a double majority: old and insane. He goes on to say without prompt:

"See I had this one lady come ta my house a lookin' fur an ol' dawg she lost. She pulled up in ma driveway and says 'I lost ma dawg. Ya seen him anywhere's?' I tells her 'Naw, I ain't seen no dawg.  But I got four roosters I'm aimin ta get rid of if your in the market fur one!'  And I declare if she didn take one of them roosters home with er!  So now's I got three left and thas three too many fur my taster."

"Well, like I said. I'll ask around for you."

"Well I thankee kindly. Heres my number Ma name's Arc Walters. Jus tell em ta call if they're in the market fur a rooster. You know I got em."

"Yes sir. I will. I know you do"

And the man ambles back out the door.  The absurdity of the conversation halts my bean breaking as I grin from ear to ear thinkin about Mr. Walters and his cockadoodlin roosters.