The Missing Piece
I feel like there’s a puzzle on the coffee table, and someone has suckered his friend into helping him move the tattered leather pull-out sofa to the street. He considered adding a sign that said free, but he figured setting it next to the street would imply as much.
As they lift the couch, a piece falls onto the floor, along with a dime and a flattened penny pressed slightly off-center with a photo of the Arch on it that reads, “Gateway to the West.”
He locks eyes with the penny, recalling the first date where he flattened two pennies, giving one to her and taking one for himself to “immortalize” the experience. She lost hers that night on that piece of furniture. “This couch lasted longer than my marriage,” he thought. “Good riddance.”
As they return, they notice the puzzle piece on the floor. The resident looks at the incomplete puzzle. “I know I checked that fucking couch five times.” The man who’d lured his buddy over with the promise of a six-pack of Bud Light and a Papa John’s pizza presses the piece into place.
Then, he walks over to the refrigerator, grabs a beer and a slice of pizza to hand to his friend. The friend freezes in disgust. It’s Milwaukee’s Best and Little Caesars.
If that’s the best they can do, Milwaukee should be ashamed of themselves.
Calvin Langston is thirty years old & he drives an eighteen-wheeler for a living. He decided it’s time to do something he’s passionate about rather than solely fulfilling obligations. He spend an unreasonable amount of time analyzing things far beyond the point of reason.
