Sunday mornings/Friday nights
Sometimes it’s just waking up with the desire for grits that lands you in a breakfast place. And then you scan the menu and you think you don’t especially want sausage or pancakes or the huevos rancheros. You should have just stayed home and bought some grits and cheese from the store. But then there you are, so you order the Basic Breakfast and end up drinking the three cups of coffee your energetic waitress foists on you, too. Then you’re scooted out the door and left squinting at the noonday sun with a stomachache. You stand there and blink and wish you could go back to bed but are far too wired and far too full.

Remember, though, when you were little, and your dad would take you to Baskin Robbins? It was only on certain Friday nights when you’d cleaned your plate, and he’d look up from the table, once he’d wiped his mouth and put his napkin beside his plate. He’d smile that slow grin of conspiracy and you knew. Into the car and down the road. You would always get Chocolate Mousse Royale and then all walk to the drugstore around the corner and he’d buy four lottery tickets so each of you could pick out a set of numbers. You’d usually forget to watch t.v. the next night to find out the winning combination, but that wasn’t the point. It was that night out with your dad, brown sticky streams running down your wrists, the sound of Route 19, and talking about what you’d do if you were a millionaire.