Stanford Chaparral

The person before me treads a thin line of mental accountability. At times his actions point to an I.Q. so meager that current social mores instruct me not to fault him his ineptitudes, but simply pity his chromosomal misfortunes. BUT, on other occasions he manages cognitive tasks that imply he has just surpassed the intellectual limits of the legally handicapped, and if so, I owe him my eternal disdain.

He seems to be unclear as to whether the cash register sitting before him is an old familiar toy or a strange new toy.

BUT

He does seem to understand that the four dimes he plucked from the register and which he is now puzzling at do not equal the three dollars and seventy-five cents of change that I am owed.


He does have impossibly snaggled teeth, which he reveals through an asymmetrical gape.

HOWEVER

His speech impediment is limited to his exuberant use of the word ‘dude.’


He is at a quandary as to what to do with the mucous he has been steadily collecting from his left nostril.

AND YET

He does seem to realize that he does not want to keep it.


He moves mindlessly through Walgreens apparently unaware that neither the Hostess pastries nor the Head and Shoulders will help him make correct change.

BUT

It does gradually dawn on him that he should not be carrying the cash register with him.


The glaze of his two lazy eyes glistens like the sugary coating of a Krispy Kreme donut fresh from the conveyor belt.

HOWEVER

This glassy film of ignorance does drip away with endless streams from his broken tear ducts.


After a series of stutters and false starts, he burbles through a mouthful of saliva that he ‘may have hit zero too many times.’

ON THE OTHER HAND

His equally afflicted coworker is no more capable of managing the intricacies of selling me a can of soda.