| Well I guess before the story comes, I guess I should introduce you to everyone. I guess I�ll speak first. I�m Jim Turner, I�m the storyteller I guess. What you�re all about to read is what�s been going on for the past seven months. I�m 19, living in the beautiful lands of Portland, Oregon, getting ready to be a Freshman in college next month in California where I�m to be a Journalism major at Berkley. I have the six greatest friends, collectively, minus one (that�s the girlfriend of mine who lives in Salem), we all work at a place in Portland here called The Shop. What kind of shop is it persay? A coffee shop; one where people come in, pay for the next best damn thing to Starbucks, and read magazines and have conversations with us for shit and giggles mainly. I�ll be honest, my job bugs me .. Somedays, I feel like I�m just gonna pour a cup of hot java on me so I can get out of there by going to the hospital. It gets crazy in there, especially in the morning where we always average a 13 minute 44 second late opening, and then Sam comes out and she yells at us, I love her. Sam, the manager; tall, blonde and bodacious, she looks like a model but wants out too. She�s engaged, getting married in the fall, age of 21. Rather be working at the pub down the street than The Shop. She�s one of the few people there, besides my best friends from work, that don�t mind listening to me bitch and complain about how I am in love and miss Kristen ... Kristen, Kristen, the girl of my dreams, apple of my eye. We met about two years ago while I was looking at schools with my parents. We were both touring Berkeley the same day, and we met, and exchanged e-mail addresses. Through time, we talked on the phone, and met up again, she lives about 2 hours away from here in Salem, which was cool. And eventually, I fell in love with her, and she fell in love with me. We had the four great months together, we�d see each other when we could, but I was still in California, she was going through her Senior Year in high school, and it got to us, and we had an amicable split. But of course, being Jim Turner, I would end up being depressed for awhile, and asking her to take me back, but she moves on .. and that�s the better part of our story coming up here. Ked, real name Kenneth Elwood, he�s my best friend who I�ve known since Junior High when he moved here from Oklahoma. His dad�s in the Air Force, he�s lived all over the world, spent a better part of the 1980�s in Europe .. might be why he acts kind of weird, could�ve conducted that whole mad cow disease that those television evangelists blame the devil for. We�ve always been there for one another; we go do things together, the football games, the movies, concerts, out to dinner, work together .. but of course Kay is always long. His girlfriend since freshman year. I can tell that�ll be the first wedding I�ll be attending in about three years time. Ked and Kay, the two .. well .. �K�s� of the bunch. They are just the perfect couple .. well besides Kristen and I. There�s of course Sheryl Lynn Foxtrot, my best female friend. She�s like the sister I have never had due to genetics. I met and started hanging out with her around the time Ked moved here in Junior High. She�s so hysterical, always hyper or tired. One or the other. At work though, she�s the lazy one. Sam always threatens to fire her but Sam loves us all too much to get rid of us. (We all started there when The Shop opened, it�s like we were the trend setters. None of us ever left, but people work there while we�re on leave of absence for school and what have you.). Anyway, Sheryl�s the artistic one of us. She gets that from her mother, paints, sculpts, makes things I could never do with my two hands that she can. Fatsy, that�s her name to us. Her badge at work even says it. No one knows her real name, and none of us at The Shop go to school with her. She told us the story once of why she is known as Fatsy. Now Fatsy is very pretty and everything that her name isn�t; slender body, just a gorgeous girl who wants to be a chef and eats a lot, which hints at her nickname. You see, one summer she took a family fishing trip to Canada for a week and when she came back said that she had ate so much that she gained weight, and you could tell in her face. I never could, but I mean, it�s like she eats all the time! We�re at work, we have to tell her to get her hands out of the cookie jars and what have you. One day, when she�s 27 or something, or has her first child even, that�ll be the day. And of course one day, I had the nerve to try and find her name: first, middle, last. So one day, she was in the back cleaning up, and I searched through her purse for a driver�s license, social security, birth certificate, anything that would be the answer to my question, everyone�s question: what the hell is Fatsy�s name? And just as I pulled out her wallet, and opened it up, Fatsy walked in: �WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!� �Um, uh, looking for a pen?� �You were looking for condoms, or a tampon, or..� �No, I needed a pen to jot now Juan�s cell number,� �Whatever...� And there�s Juan. Pronunciation: Ja Won. He�s American, his parents just named him that. And though he isn�t a homosexual, he is the one that all the homosexual customers hit upon. He�s a good kid with not a lot to say, but all the girls think he�s cute too. So anyway, my story goes something like this. |
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