Welcome_to_November_NNWM2011_01_Epiphany.02
Matthew Mews crawled out of his car and headed in to work; the crisp, autumn air served to boost Matt's mood. As Matt stepped across the threshold, the store's sliding doors opened to reveal a garishly-lit store. The sense of abandonment leaked from the lobby as Greeter Marcus nodded to Matt; smiling in response, Matt went to buy his mid-work snack. Fixings for sandwiches were purchased and left in the break-room fridge and Matt proceeded to check-in; the standard notice about break-times and a few comments about station cleaning perused, Matt headed outside.
Midnight cart-pushing was a kind of art; at first, the near-abandonment of the parking lot gave Matt ridiculously-long periods of time in which to aggregate the shopping carts. Pushing them as singletons, in groups of ten, and variations in-between, were quickly abandoned to two-fisted swings, and a small host of more complicated cart-pushing techniques. Matt worked his art alone, building small state-machines with each cart representing either bits or states; on particularly slow nights, he would build logic-gate abstractions of half-adders, rudimentary PLCs, and almost convinced himself of being satisfied with his creations.
Most nights, Matt simply pushed carts; on a cold night in November, having spent the last three hours pulling in singleton stragglers, Matt finally realized that the nagging sense of desperation that had gripped him was not the result of yesterday's burrito. And Matt walked slowly backwards from the sidewalk until sensing the long, flat wall. The cold, lifeless brick was comforting and it felt like a silent click.
He'd finally had enough.
Midnight cart-pushing was a kind of art; at first, the near-abandonment of the parking lot gave Matt ridiculously-long periods of time in which to aggregate the shopping carts. Pushing them as singletons, in groups of ten, and variations in-between, were quickly abandoned to two-fisted swings, and a small host of more complicated cart-pushing techniques. Matt worked his art alone, building small state-machines with each cart representing either bits or states; on particularly slow nights, he would build logic-gate abstractions of half-adders, rudimentary PLCs, and almost convinced himself of being satisfied with his creations.
Most nights, Matt simply pushed carts; on a cold night in November, having spent the last three hours pulling in singleton stragglers, Matt finally realized that the nagging sense of desperation that had gripped him was not the result of yesterday's burrito. And Matt walked slowly backwards from the sidewalk until sensing the long, flat wall. The cold, lifeless brick was comforting and it felt like a silent click.
He'd finally had enough.
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