Peanuts. Get Your Peanuts.

I lurched forward slightly as the train came to a halt. I wish I could say it was a violent, screeching halt; but instead it was a wimpy, hissing halt. The doors slid open and a new batch of patrons entered. A tired, beaten, and broken man carelessly stumbled over his own feet towards me. He must have had the worst day ever. His fancy suit was littered with wrinkles and drenched with the kind of sweat that only results from unfathomable amounts of stress. The bags under his eyes pulled away at his face as if they were trying to escape. I wanted to cut them free. I figured they could run away and live a happy life, his face would return to normal, and I would have gotten away with cutting someone; everybody wins.

He peered hopelessly down the aisle seeing masses of sweaty, annoying people who stood between him and his home. His head teetered downward and bobbled a little bit. I thought it might fall off but I was prepared to point at and blame the woman sitting in front of me. He was lazily examining my seat. I was alone in a two seater and was therefore the keeper and guardian of the only open seat in the car. Perhaps nobody sat next to me because they were all intimidated by my dashing good looks, sophisticated vocabulary, and my enviable intellect. Perhaps nobody sat next to me because they could sense the evil that lurks deep in the dark bowels of my tangled and twisted mind that even I have yet to discover. Perhaps nobody sat next to me because the person who was just sitting next to me had just gotten off at this stop. Regardless, this guy had a list of things he certainly did not want to do, it was probably his to-do list today. Last on that list was being on this train.

He plopped down next to me and cranked his head upwards. His neck creaked like the front door at my grandma’s house and I thought his head might fall off again. There was no way I could blame the woman in front of me for this one. I panicked. He let out a deep sigh, a sigh that had he been alone on the train would have been accompanied by gushing streams of salty despair as his tear ducts exploded. He safely lowered his fragile head so he was facing the briefcase in his lap, his head still attached to his neck. I sighed in relief.

He stared at his briefcase intensely for a few minutes. Either he was thinking about how much he hated it and everything it stood for or one of them was going to draw a gun as soon as the clock tower struck 7:00PM. I hoped to God the man would win this draw. How would I explain to the police that his briefcase shot him and spared me, the only witness? He opened the briefcase and stuck his hand inside. What was he reaching for that he didn’t need to see? Was it…candy? Would I take any if he offered? Sure I was hungry, but to take candy from a man with a detachable head and a serial killer briefcase would be highly frowned upon. I panicked. He retracted his hand slowly.

A spreadsheet. The worst kind too, there must have been 20 pages and at least one billion columns of size three font. And it was all in black and white. I began to wonder if his office didn’t let him print in color. Or maybe his office didn’t believe in color. Maybe his life was so dismal that he had learned to see in grayscale. I imagined the poor man’s business card. Plain white. No texture or designs; just standard and flat cardstock from Staples. He probably has a boring name like Ron. Ron Barns. And a boring job title; Ron Barns, Vice President of Spreadsheet Inspection and Analysis. He had probably been working at Goldberg & Partners Cell Mergers and Spreadsheet Acquisition all of his life. 

He stared at the spreadsheet much like he had stared at the briefcase. There was no way I could handle a gun slinging briefcase and a gun slinging spreadsheet. I got ready to panic. He closed his eyes tight, squeezing them shut. This must have been extremely difficult seeing as how the giant bags under his eyes were trying to pull his face off. This was an amazing feat and I wanted to applaud him but it was obvious that he was just fighting his tears and I did not want to distract him. Another sigh came, this one weaker than the last. This guy was going to break down by his next sigh and I wasn’t even half way home! I began to panic. 

His eyelids burst open and his eyeballs twinkled a little. He had an idea, I could tell! He opened the briefcase, this time looking, and pulled out a bag of peanuts. I could see that he really wanted to smile but it is possible that he had long since forgotten how to do that. This would be his break, the only good part of his day. This was the reason he didn’t just give in and let his briefcase blow his brains out all over the seat, or worse, all over me. This tiny reward meant so much to him and I knew that it was the one thing that gives him a reason to carry on. He gripped the top of the bag with all of his fingers and ripped it open. He closed his eyes pleasingly and pleasurably took in the aroma of the roasted, salty treasure. He began to sprinkle the revitalizing morsels onto the palm of his weathered hand.

“Excuse me, sir.” He jumped a little as I snapped him back into reality with my barely audible plea.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I’m so sorry, but I have a horrible peanut allergy.” This was not at all what I had planned on saying. Quite the contrary, I love peanuts and all foods that have peanuts in them except for brownies but that’s a different story. What happened was - I panicked. I wanted to ask him for a peanut but as soon as he responded to me, I realized that I didn’t want to take any of his peanuts away from him. Why I made up the allergy story, I have no idea. But I had to stick with it or else I’d be a liar.

“Really?” He asked reluctantly.

“Yes. It’s terrible. I can actually feel my throat starting to itch and close up. It’s okay though, I have my EpiPen with me.”

“No, no. I’ll put them away. I’m… sorry.” He rolled up the bag tightly and slid them back into the briefcase. He put his hands back on the spreadsheet to examine its numbers, trying to derive some meaning from them, trying to derive some meaning from his life. I thought I’d help him so I stared at the numbers too. I was distracted though when I saw a tear splash on cell D46.