The Long-Running Saga of Poems About the Summer of 2006 Continues to Continue

August 11, 2006
Today I decided

to make a list
of all the places I go
on my lunch hour
to run errands

Walgreens (I try not to even think about how much money I give to that chain)

various ATMs (I ought to go to Washington Mutual and save the fee
but it’s just far enough away to be inconvenient
and so I go to the Patelco credit union
or else the strange little Wells Fargo atm in the cubby next to the See’s candy store
and you can get stamps there too
I used to go to the one around the corner just a little way up the block
don’t know what it’s called
but then it was always out of cash on Fridays so I stopped going there
Once I went to the new bank on the corner of Market and Second
but it gave me fifty dollar bills which weird and caused me trouble
so I haven’t gone back there)

the bank (for when I need to deposit a check
as opposed to when I just go to whatever random ATM for cash on Fridays)

the post office (for stamps when one wants
more/better/different/cheaper stamps than the ones in the Wells Fargo atm
or when one gets the urge to eat the weird spicy crab soup at Briazz too)

Chatz (for coffee
Ground coffee by the pound I mean for making at home
Bill is still loyal to their beans after having worked there so long ago
and it is true that the coffee he makes in the morning
is pretty much my favorite coffee of all time
mild but not weak
I didn’t even know coffee could be both those things at once
until we started living together
apparently it has to do with the beans coming from South American countries)

Stacy’s Books (far too often)

the Fast-Pass booth down inside the Montgomery train station (where the people
are laboriously slow and consistently become deeply confused
by the same simple transaction I perform every month
buying two Fast Passes using
a thirty-five dollar commuter check and sixty bucks in cash
they inevitably claim they can’t give me my ten dollars back in change
because they cannot give change on commuter checks
and I inevitably patiently explain that the change is for the cash
and they say Oh! with shock and recognition
And then a month later we go through the whole song and dance again)

Patrick and Company Stationers (both locations
though not often
because at both the people are also painfully slow
almost to the point of hilarity
but not quite)

and very occasionally the mailbox on the corner of Market and Montgomery

image source is here