free soup

this evening, in frustration, i took my work to the dana street coffeeshop hoping it would clear my head. the contract project i'm producing has become far more complicated and demanding than i expected. but i only got a little bit of work done there, even though i was wearing my grey space mountain tshirt. not that the shirt wasn't helping, can't imagine how unproductive i would have been without it. still the stress was growing. so the plan was to leave around 9 and pick up chinese takeout at garden fresh, come home and keep working.

i was late though. the restaurant closed at 9:30. i sorta knew i was going to miss it as i sat at the intersection before the last left turn. but i parked and walked in anyway: "am i too late?" i said. "oh sorry. we're closed already." "(damn.) oh well." i started to wonder if i had a frozen burrito at home. sigh. "do you want some soup? we have some soup left." "really? oh yeah!" they have really good soup. "you can have it." wait, is she really offering me the soup at no charge? "no no. i'll buy it. i love soup." she shakes her head "it's okay" and walks into the back.

so i stand there stunned. look around and there are only 2 couples at tables in the place. it's a small restaurant. could hold about 20 people max. she comes back with the soup in a large container, wraps it in a plastic bag so it won't spill. i say "how much?" "no no…" "well okay. thank you very much!" "my employees always leave a little early…" "then next time i will be here a lot earlier" i'm smiling now. there's no way she could have known that i was having a terrible day…

she told me i could put the leftovers in the fridge, it was a fairly large container, but i ate all of it when i got home. this was the best free soup ever. damn. i really needed that. thanks.