i know, mike, but your "ideas" are just that

"Squares and circles are the same." "Really? Have you heard of wheels?" A man crosses the street at night clutching a tiny bowling trophy. There is a giant poster with pictures of a tire-less car and the text: "Who stole my shoes?" One store sells phone cards, fax services, and imported melon sodas. A woman even changes her profile picture from a picture of limes to a picture of herself walking her cat on a leash. It still doesn't help. A guy's sister crushed her hand while she was working on his race car. He told her not to work on it, but he was in Wisconsin. Now he waits in the Emergency Room waiting area with his sister's boyfriend. He looks at the snack machine that sells vegan jerky. "It's not that I'm against the earthy crunchy stuff," he says. The boyfriend is eating Doritos. "I don't even like Doritos," he says. "It's just I'm so bored." The race car driver is missing his bottom teeth but he smiles a lot. He is asking everyone if they're okay or they're just waiting. "Do you want a lap dance?" he asks his sister's boyfriend. Two women discuss the secret downstairs of a clothing consignment store. A third woman joins the conversation. When a stranger jumps into a conversation with vigorous affirmation, I feel a holy feeling. "Oh yes," the stranger says. "They sell beautiful aprons." Someone in Vermont is using a Clydesdale to haul wood, and someone else decided to put a picture of this into a magazine about Vermont. "But if say you were here for a chopped off hand," the doctor says. "Well, then I'd know what to do." After all the tests, the partner of the patient across the curtain peeks into our area and says we should advocate more. She is or was a rugby player. In the gas station across the street from the hospital, the attendant suggests I put a plastic container of fried chicken in the microwave. "Plastic? In the microwave?" When I eat the chicken, it tastes like Indian food and carpet. One cab driver talked a lot, and all the other cab driver said was "Good timing" when he made a green. I didn't notice he had a mustache until I tipped him.