Better Attitude
The next morning a broken water main turned my usual fifteen
minute commute into an hour and twenty minute tour of Pittsburgh’s northern
suburbs. I wasn’t smiling when I got to work.
I had just sat down when a gaunt white kid wearing a
stained Led Zeppelin t-shirt poked his head into my office. “Wanna watch me
pee?” he asked. Let’s get this over with,
I thought.
We crossed the hall to the bathroom. When he took the specimen cup from me I
noticed his hands were shaking. “You
don’t need to fill it more than a quarter of the way up,” I said, having no
desire to be splashed.
When he was done, he handed me his specimen cup as if
it truly contained liquid gold. I told
him he could wash his hands and I’d let him know the results in a few minutes. He asked if he could watch me run the test. I dipped the ten panel kit into the cup and
counted to thirty. After I put the
bottom cap back on the kit, lines began to form on the test strips. Each set of twin lines meant he’d tested
negative for a particular drug. When all ten panels showed negative, he let
out a whoop. “First time I’ve been
completely clean in ten years!”
His name was Sam.
I didn’t know much about him except he was nineteen years old, his life
was a wreck, and at that moment his attitude was better than mine.
Today I will follow the lead of people with
better attitudes.
Writing My New Story © 2015 by Ken Montrose
(Just a
reminder: Writing My New Story is a
work of fiction. Any resemblance to
anyone you might know is purely coincidental.)
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