I was walking alone, as one does, between the dirty apartment buildings that were stacked one after the other as if by a giant kid that stacks their toy bricks: arranged in a way, but not very neatly.

I entered they gym shop on the ground floor of one of these buildings. I asked for some protein bars and a couple of yoga bricks. While the clerk was fumbling around to open the plastic bag, I was imagining, what if I asked him for a frozen chicken? Would he laugh? Would he just pause and look at me? Or, I thought to myself, he would take the question at face value and tell me he doesn't sell frozen chickens and that I should go to the supermarket next door.

As I exited the shop once again, a man was parked so tightly just off the sidewalk ramp, that neither wheelchairs, nor walking people could cross the road. As I saw him walk away from his vehicle, afraid to chastise him for his blatant lack of consideration, I imagined I was not alone, but with a friend.

I would grab him and hold him, while my friend would slowly remove his backpack, open the zipper and get a portable, battery operated little blender out of it. He would then take a small tablecloth, spread it with care on the boot of his car, and get some pineapples from a supermarket cart we'd be hauling.

In the meantime, I've tied the guy and put a funnel in his mouth. My friend now has a knife and is peeling and cutting the pineapples, laying them tidily on the tablecloth. I take the pieces one by one, put them in the blender and after I'm certain they'd be a homogenous pulp I gently pour the smoothie down the inconsiderate bastard's throat.

What is he gonna do? Go to the police? Who would believe somebody claiming that two guys stopped him in the middle of the street and force-fed him fresh pineapple pulp. They'd think he was mad.

The same evening I was sitting in front of the computer, watching the multiple columns of mastodon scroll endlessly by. Someone commented on the current fad (well by 2020, not so current anymore) for absurd job titles in programming-related ads such as: rockstar developer, javascript ninja and others, equally cringeworthy.

Immediately I thought I should send a CV to all of those companies, just to land a single interview and then show up dressed up like Mötley Crue but with a colorful keyboard instead of an electric guitar, or even better, dressed like a ninja, and go sit there in the waiting room as if nothing weird is happening. “I'm here for the javascript ninja position, yes”.

Which of course reminded me of the time my partner was working at Big Pharma and they usually had these “Round Table Discussions” where opinions of managerial staff and other high ranking officials were supposed to have equal weight with white collar workers and where all kinds of infuriating discussions took place, and I wanted like nothing else to show up in the middle of the meeting dressed up like a medieval knight, with a horse if possible, and announce my presence. I always thought that just the looks on the managers' faces would be payment enough for my imagined bravery.

Next day, on the way to work I stopped to get a coffee at the familiar bakery. There was a new girl there. The coffee was surprisingly good. That made an impression, but I didn't think long about it. At the office I'd remark about the coffee to my new co-worker.

She turns to me in the most natural way and tells me: “You should go back and tell her. Tell her that she made you the best coffee you've ever had. Tell her that you only live for the brilliant coffee she makes and that you want to marry her. Tell her you love her.”

I stayed there looking at her, wondering how did she know.