I always think I am going to like little lemon lavender cakes and pastries, so I often order them, and then I always think they taste like lotion or soap. I should probably stop ordering them, but I won’t.
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I had to buy a hamster to be my students’ class pet. The only options were a gigantic brownish grey hamster that looked like a rat or a white dwarf hamster with red eyes. I chose the white dwarf hamster with red eyes because at least it was small, and because, while in the pet store, I watched the large rat-like hamster lift its leg and urinate in its cage in a long stream, which viscerally disgusted me. I didn’t think rodents peed like that. I figured that at least with the small hamster, I probably wouldn’t notice it. Before I revealed the newly purchased small white hamster to the class, I reminded my students and myself that just because an animal has red eyes doesn’t mean it is evil. My students voted to name the hamster Vanilla. When I watch Vanilla run in his wheel I feel fondness towards him — this strange, tiny creature.
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Later, at my bartending job, I notice the grand opening of a new bodega next door. It is now the fourth bodega on the block, and the fifth if we are also counting smoke shops as bodegas. I’m convinced that at least one of these bodegas is a front for a major drug operation. In celebration of its opening, the new bodega’s owner has installed an American flag pinwheel on the side of the building. I zone out at work, staring at the red, white, and blue pinwheel spinning in the breeze while I am stuck behind the bar pouring natural wine. When I lock up, the proud new bodega owner stands outside and screams in Arabic into his cell phone. He gives me a thumbs up. I give him one back.