Let’s face it. Most of the time lately, I have no idea what day it is. I was trying to help a customer on the phone, someone who was trying to get cigars sent to his home in Connecticut. I remarked that if he called early enough tomorrow morning, he should get them by Friday.

He said, that tomorrow was Friday. There went my plan for him to satisfy his cigar needs. It didn’t really matter since I was fobbing him off to another cigar shop in Manhattan. But I was taken aback by the fact that today was Thursday for most people but for me it was Tuesday.

And Harpy is somewhere in New Jersey. Attending some wake. As long as it isn’t Harpy’s wake I am fine with it. Hopefully the border will be open when he decides to leave the mainland and return to that island off the coast of America.

Last night I slept especially well. Bill was somewhere in Pennsylvania and didn’t come home until 5:30. He was off from work today so he lay sleeping as I was the one dressed up and headed out the door.

I saw the 10:15 bus at the stop but decided to wait for the 10:30 bus. I sat there on a bench and finished last night’s cigar which would have horrified my cigar shop co-workers. I had no problem with it and stayed far enough away from anyone who was waiting for the bus and might have had problems with the cigar.

I walked through the terminal listening to New Order, Blue Monday. I guess there was a karma pay off with the fact that when I got to the subway there was a train at the station. An express train at that.

I made it into the cigar shop early enough and explained to Calvin the problem with the printer not being connected to the network. He didn’t think it was that much of a problem since all the info was in the database and easily accessible. I didn’t know that and my worrying was all for naught.

It was an interesting day at the cigar shop. In the afternoon an elderly gent came in and I of course welcomed him with a ‘Hello Sir’, like I do with all the male customers. Women get a ‘Hello Miss’. It makes the older women feel younger and the men feel like gentlemen (though most of them aren’t).

I asked the elderly gent if he was at the shop to buy a cigar and he said that he wasn’t, he didn’t smoke anymore. His name was Bill and he was 81. He just wanted to come in and talk about how he first started smoking cigars when he was 13 years old, growing up in an orphanage.

It was a convoluted story but that was the gist of it. He had a few jobs when he was 13 years old, and thrilled at that age when he was making $14.00 a week for stocking the shelves in a grocery store.

He mentioned that his whole life was stories and that he needed a ghostwriter to get them all down before it was too late. I suggested that he go to a nearby college and speak to someone in the English department, maybe they could suggest a student to help him out with what he wanted to do.

I don’t know if that’s how things get done on campuses these days, but it was an idea that he seemed to like.

Just another day I suppose in Manhattan, working in a cigar store. Thursday’s with Old Bill.