Long Distance Storage

Tomorrow, Thursday, I will arise very early, long before daylight. Once showered, shaved, and dressed, I will grab my cell phone and walk to a plain white cargo van that is parked in front of my house. I will follow a circuitous course to Interstate 35 south and will join the truckers and long-distance commuters on the road, wishing that I had taken time to stop for a cup of coffee, but knowing that the only places open at that hour would be purveyors of something they call coffee but which is, in fact, something wretched and nasty. I will convince myself that Waco, Texas, the spiritual center of born-again religious intolerance and downright crazy people who actually think they speak to, and for, God, is a good place to stop for Starbucks coffee. I am relatively certain that Starbucks has infiltrated the institutions of the religious right, including Waco.

I will stop in Waco and will revel in the caffeine that Starbucks will deliver. If I am feeling particulary good, I might have breakfast in Waco, but it's possible that I might have to stop before Waco...perhaps in West, Texas, which is home to several Czech bakeries. I recall eating a magnificent sausage kolache in one of those bakeries not too many years ago, a kolache with deep sausage flavored deeply with black-pepper and made perfect with the infusion of the heat and flavor of habanero peppers. It was enough to make my soul scream and my eyes tear. So, maybe I will stop in West...but no coffee for me there; they drink weakly-colored, mud-flavored, water and call it coffee.

Whether or not I stop in West, I will almost certainly stop in Waco. I will need gas, as the van has only half a tank as I write this. My cargo, on the way to Austin, will consist of my cell phone, my leather portfolio and contents, and a heavy-duty 2-wheel dolly, an odd assortment of next-to-nothing to take on a 200 mile trip through the state. If I knew someone who needed something transported to Austin, I would be happy to take it...it would keep me company. But I hadn't thought of it, frankly, until just now. Once I get to Austin, which I plan to do before 10:30, I will drive straight to a storage facility on the mid-north side of town. There, I will meet a woman named Janet, who ostensibly is the contact who knows what I am to pick up. I know only that there are boxes...many boxes...that I must retrieve in Austin. I do not know the contents. For all I know, I may be driving to Austin to pick up boxes full of black-market organs for transplantation or boxes full of the remains of people who have been hacked to death by psychotic University of Texas athletes. I'm betting not, but one never knows.

Once I have loaded the cargo van, I will immediately head north, with the objective of moving the contents of the van, whatever they are, to a storage facility near my office. I will then return the cargo van to its proper owner, a rental agency, and head to my office, or to my house.

The excitement of my business is almost beyond comprehension. Those who read this...please, fight your jealosy...you, too, could be doing what I am doing, if only you took the risks!