I had recently received word that I had been accepted for a co-op position with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (presumably to work on www.Mounties.com), so I was in a favourable frame of mind as I walked out to escort my little sister home from her job at the local Archie's, where she seats octogenarians so that they might consume discounted haddock.

I'm glad she got a job in fast food. I didn't, so that made my transition to office monkey a lot harder. Hannah is in high school, and has a job in a restaurant where she makes minimum wage. That is the way things should be.

I overshot the amount of time required to get to this fine eatery, and the nearby Gooseland and Gifts had sadly packed up shop, so I decided to go in and order some shrimp. I do like shrimp.

Hannah seated me in the booth I had shared with my mother the previous week. Mom was at a religious retreat, and my brother was at bible college, leaving me at home with Hannah, who was usually at work or school. Prior to landing the RCMP job, I anticipated lounging alone thusly at home for the entire fall semester.

As I sat, awaiting shrimp, with my feet dangling casually in the vacant aisles, I idly pondered the sugar dispenser. The lid, stainless steel, had a tiny flap crimped into a slot by some machine. Some college student, I thought, designed the machine that crimped that sugar dispenser flap. Some engineering geek, a young man not unlike myself, stayed up late at night, puzzling over worm gears and rubber crimping heads. Whenever that young man, now an old man, goes to a restaurant, he checks the sugar dispenser, then gives a satisfied nod. He explains to his lady friend that he invented the machine that made that sugar dispenser top, and she thoroughly fails to be impressed.

The cocktail sauce was a little too spicy. The tartar sauce was heavenly. I don't understand why we reserve tartar sauce for fish. If it were up to me, tartar sauce would be as ubiquitous as ketchup. But then, I suppose, it would lose its specialness. I only get tartar sauce when I go to a fish restaurant, and sometimes not even then.

I was the only patron left in the store, and Hannah was wiping down the little glass dividers. She bummed a shrimp from me. Most people don't eat the tails, but I do. I'm not picky.

I walked Hannah home in the dark, foiling the evil plots of the many serial rapists in the ten-or-so blocks between Archie's and our house. I related how I tried to drink condensed milk, and she laughed.

This is the kind of thing I would post here if this were a blog site. It would be accompanied by a little animated .gif, showing a smiling lizard with the caption "CONTENTED".