later than you think
The world as it is: up early to take Hrothgar the Honda in for service, walk around for three hours while they're doing the tune-up. Get cash from the bank, run into Colette at the Java House. Buy a hat because I can feel my cochlea starting to freeze. Drop by the travel section of Prairie Lights, learn how to avoid schistosomiasis in Guatemala. Hang out at the HyVee, but you know how supermarkets are: hang out too long and you want to weep for humanity. Buy lunch (travel-pack pita/hummus thing, eaten in the parking lot), buy vinegar, go to Office Depot (vinegar in coat pocket, feeling vaguely subversive), examine the globes and pens and overhead projectors and computer games. There is now a game called "Fast Food Tycoon." It appears to be like SimCity, except you manage a pizza place, and you battle other pizza places plus the organized-crime syndicate that wants a cut of your profits. And who, who, who are the people whose photographs they place in unsold picture frames?
