i’m at lunch at my favorite low-price diner,
the one with the waitress with the painted-on pants.
she’s very sweet, or seems to be,
with her high, thin voice, naive look—and those pants!
a peelable girl.
so i’m at lunch and at the booth right next to me
are three guys talking about cowboy coffee.
i’m reading a magazine and not paying too much attention,
when i notice they’re not talking about coffee anymore.
now they’re talking about dogs—
about male poodles who, when they do the do that poodles do,
sometimes get stuck.
and the punchline is, the poodles have to be snipped,
which one of the guys says is probably pretty painful.
they get up to leave.
one of them says something about things dropping out later.
a cook’s assistant brings me the meal i ordered.
the manager strolls by, drops a complementary lottery ticket on my table.
i look around for my sweet, peelable waitress, but i don’t know where she’s gone.
i scratch my lottery ticket.
i’ve won a buck!
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)