"Hey, Old Guy"

The office is lit with afternoon highs in the low 80’s and enough of a breeze to move the brush once every few minutes; it feels like winter, but the temperature gauge tells me otherwise. Walking to get to my cube seems even more like a labyrinth of padded, dark gray walls and off-white piping. I flipped on all of the over-the-desk lamps and hit the power button to the computer as I looked for more lighting – anything overhead that would provide what those near the windows get in excess on sunny days like today – and ended up “borrowing” Sabrina, my cube mate’s, floor lap. Beside my own keystrokes, you can’t hear anything but the occasional opening over a door across the office by the cleaning lady or dumping of a tin garbage can into the gray, plastic receptacle.

As soon as my computer loads up, my sister sends me an instant message. She went snowboarding on Sunday with Amir. There was snow in Minnesota, after all. The climate could sustain snow and sleet and fume breath unlike the DFW area. Our winter has been indifferent, I tell her. It’s around 79 or 80 and pleasant. She reflects my own sentiments, “I need seasons.” I guess two weeks of thirty degree days is what constitutes the winter “season” around here. Anyway, soon there after, “dad told me he wants to move to Arizona…that he’d like to retire there.” “Sounds right…he never really liked Texas anyway.” It was true; the people seemed to bother my dad, as they did me. So sports obsessed and transfixed on such ignorantly turned matters as gas prices, ignoring the rest of the countries obviously higher prices. Also, the “cow people,” as my dad calls them. They’re plentiful here. Driving at their own pace in the far left lane, unaware of the motorists launching past them as if siphoning momentum. I could see my mom and dad finding a house in Arizona after Shirin got to college or soon thereafter. They would find a small bungalow with a spacious backyard for gardening and not have to deal with the populations of either Florida (BORING!) or California (Annoying!). When my sisters or I visit they talk about their tomatoes, tulips and marigolds in the backyard and how my dad won’t plant something-or-rather that my mom wants and he’ll roll his eyes. He and I would go to a couple Cubs Spring Training games and talk about the next season while my sisters and mom went shopping. They would spend their nights watching “silly” movies and television shows. Movies and television shows that my mother enjoys and my father quietly laughs about.

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It’s been about two hours since I got here. My burrito is long digested and I still haven’t figured out how to illuminate the office lights above me, so I’m making due with desk and a floor lamp. And I need some more water…