01-05-2020, 02:09 PM
Two minutes. Didn’t sound like long enough to accomplish whatever alchemical reaction turned water and bits of black grit into the beigy, homogeneous substance he thought of as tea. He had other tea-relevant questions, too. Mostly: when it comes without the paper bag and little tag that says Lipton, what’s the preferred method of separating solid from liquid? A vague collective-consciousness notion of “tea leaves” -- of gypsy women wrapped in scarves, reading them to predict futures -- was lodged in the back of his head, but he'd never had much reason to consider the mechanics of the process until now.
But he had a feeling voicing any of this would highlight some part of him that was lacking, and he didn’t want the damn kid judging him ignorant. (Even as a more logical voice suggested the kid's judgment didn't matter in the least.) So, he lifted his phone again, a quirk of his eyebrows betraying the moment he registered how his failed search from a minute ago had metamorphosed from error message into a burgeoning of results. He pulled up his clock to set a two minute timer and flipped back to the search screen, read Jude 1:3, Jude 1:3 KJV, Jude 3, Jude 1-3, Jude 1:3. Great, thanks, Pops.
“Hm?” He broke away from the phone and looked back up at the kid. Book of Jude, who knew? Another life experience lacuna: he had no idea how many books were in the Bible. Add that to the tea situation, it was almost enough to make a guy feel ignorant. But then he’d never claimed to know much of anything; a little bit of philosophy, some alcohol-related fun facts. His bars of choice had never been the ones with trivia nights ...
“Don’t know,” he said. “Thought about it, but it’s a lot of trouble, and it’s not like I want the money. I keep meaning to look up whether it’s illegal to set fire to your own house around here ... Might just leave it to rot. Why, you want it?”
But he had a feeling voicing any of this would highlight some part of him that was lacking, and he didn’t want the damn kid judging him ignorant. (Even as a more logical voice suggested the kid's judgment didn't matter in the least.) So, he lifted his phone again, a quirk of his eyebrows betraying the moment he registered how his failed search from a minute ago had metamorphosed from error message into a burgeoning of results. He pulled up his clock to set a two minute timer and flipped back to the search screen, read Jude 1:3, Jude 1:3 KJV, Jude 3, Jude 1-3, Jude 1:3. Great, thanks, Pops.
“Hm?” He broke away from the phone and looked back up at the kid. Book of Jude, who knew? Another life experience lacuna: he had no idea how many books were in the Bible. Add that to the tea situation, it was almost enough to make a guy feel ignorant. But then he’d never claimed to know much of anything; a little bit of philosophy, some alcohol-related fun facts. His bars of choice had never been the ones with trivia nights ...
“Don’t know,” he said. “Thought about it, but it’s a lot of trouble, and it’s not like I want the money. I keep meaning to look up whether it’s illegal to set fire to your own house around here ... Might just leave it to rot. Why, you want it?”