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"Randal," I said, nodding a hello to the school's resident rat, Randy, as it squirmed out of sight behind the schools front steps. I was in a good mood. My retro root beer shades, sun on my back, my good pair of jeans, curly hair bouncing off my neck, and my man purse bouncing off my hip. I passed the mini-bus drivers in the corner of the school parking lot as they sat in their usual semi-circle on folding chairs, smoking and watching their newly-washed buses as and the kiddies playing in the gravel. I rounded the fence from the school and headed down the road toward the video store. I passed the dokboki lady sitting in her mobile truck-converted-into-a-kitchen dokboki stand, as she turned rice logs in orange spaghetteo-esque sauce. She gave me one of her million dollar smiles and I bowed back, happy to know there was one of those smiles in the world. I passed the local convenient store, Best Store, with its usual packs of yellow sweat suits sporting kids (somebody's bad idea for a school uniform) running in and out of the door holding ice cream bars. Four or five young students from our language school, also clad in yellow, screamed my name from across the street. As I waved back to them, the responded in a unified chorus of "Heeelllooooooooooow!" Further down the street I passed what the foreign teachers call the "chicken lady," a man who sells chicken in his truck-converted-into-a-chicken-rotisserie chicken stand. I fielded four or five more "Heeelllooooooooooooooow"s with a friendly "hi," this time to middle-aged men hanging out the window of their Hyundai. Such "hello"s never get a "hello, how are you?," or "hey, what's your name?" like the kids do, because behind the men's smiles usually lies a bit of sarcasm. "Hi" will do. I passed the fruit guy, smoking over his bananas and the grannies sitting on the sidewalk selling vegetables and garlic. I passed Kalma plaza and waited for the usual five minutes to cross the road. The walk sign lit green, I waited for two taxis, a van, and a coffee girl on a scooter biz through the crosswalk and red light before I even thought about crossing the road. I took a risk and actually crossed the road (ran), the green walk sign already blinking it's ominous warning that the light will change any second. As I crossed, I yelled out a few more "hello"s to kids passing me on their bikes, also braving the crosswalk. Safely across the street, I looked through the window of Paris Baguette, the local bakery charade, for a nanosecond before I remembered my promise to myself not to go in there. Self respect, really. Friends don't let friends eat pastries with preservatives and in wrappers. I made it to the video store, greeted the usual woman at the counter with "anyangasayoh," avoided eye contact with the animated porn section, found a G rated animation to show to my afternoon classes (pizza party for finishing their latest text book), paid, and retraced my steps back to school. I was in a good mood. A Good Mood--Scottro [2003-05-23]
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