
“You know,” he said between sips from his styrofoam cup (because “it keeps warmer than one of those normal mugs” and so he dutifully writes his name on the cup and sets it aside, using it daily for a week or so), “it sure costs a lot these days to be dead.”
I couldn’t see him from where I stood behind the counter, having just scooped out 81 cents worth of penny candy for some acned tween who was trying desperately to calculate how many coins he had in his grimy paw.
I couldn’t even remember if this local coffee-drinking farmer, maybe ten years my senior, still had a wiry mustache that tickled that afore-mentioned Styrofoam cup each time he raised it to quietly slurp, or whether he’d shaved it off. Months ago, after he had joked about having cheek and chin stubble due to lack of finances available for purchase of a razor, some Mall regular had cockily placed a cup with a few "coppers" and a note attached stated, “money for the poor: help ______ buy a razor”
It costs a lot these days to be dead?
Intriguing… much like many of the conversations the morning “coffee club” regulars have off in the corner of this general store. A group of mainly men with impressive, usually sage, advice from all and any (even when not requested or desired), and the copious tales of delight, horror, sadness, humour, and life in general.
This talk of death and the cost of coffins, burial plots, death taxes (such a happy note at the day’s beginning!) lead into another fellow present’s sharing of his ongoing jocular threat to his very elderly father. “Careful what you say and do to us, Dad – or we’ll bury you on top of your dad and you’ll be there forever”. (Apparently he and his dad were in all-out war most of the time.)
UNfortunately I rarely hear more than a murmur, the odd comment audible between customer purchases, phone calls, morning routines. Not wishing to appear too nosy I only infrequently amble over to fill my own "mug of murk" (so some short order cooks call it? Uncle John's Bathroom Reader says it so it must be true...), though fascinating is usually an adjective that could be chosen to represent the coffee club's a.m. banter...
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