“Skinny girls, that’s all we get now. The chubby ones all go to the place up the street.” He was talking with his back to me but something in his voice and in the way he stood told me he was about to quit the whole thing.
“Reason?” I sat at the counter on a red, upholstered stool without a back. I could do about a quarter turn to the right or to the left before stops built into the stool stopped me with a jerk. I had taken to turning slowly to the left until I felt the bump and then slowly to the right until I felt the other bump. Once I get started on a repetition like that I can do it all day.
“Bigger muffins.” He started wiping the stainless steel work space behind the counter, still facing away from me, “cheaper too.”
“How can they do that? You over charging?”
He turns enough to look at me over his shoulder, it’s one of those looks worth a thousand words. He goes back to cleaning.
“So they’re just trying to put you out of business?” I stop rotating back and forth on my stool long enough to take a sip from a paper coffee cup with his shop’s logo on it.
“Could be, or they’re just using some really cheap ingredients. You wouldn’t believe the size of these muffins. Twice as big as mine and for a dime less. Some of the chubby girls even took the time to tell me how sorry they were but they’re still up the street.”
“But you’ll be okay right? This will all blow over and things will get back to normal, right?”
He finishes polishing the stainless and turns completely around to face me, “I think some of the skinny girls are pairing up, buying one muffin and getting it cut in half. But, yeah, I’ll be fine. I still got you and that small cup of brewed coffee every morning.”
I don’t tell him I went by the place up the street and sampled one of their huge muffins. The muffins are great and it’s true all the chubby girls are hanging there.
david blankenship 