156: larry

lovely day outside, isn’t it? all the, ah, leaves, things, all over the place. and the, uh, wind. lovely wind. look, are you–ahhh, i should–hello, my name is, um, uh, larry, that’s right, and i … well we’ve sat at this bus stop together nearly every day now for what, six months? seven months? eight? eight months? i guess it’s unimportant–i started at the button factory on october 18th, so it’s been seven months and three days i guess–seven months! that’s a lot of time to be sitting next to each other without introducing ourselves, you know what i mean? so i’m larry, i work at the button factory. you know when you buy a new shirt and there’s a couple of extra buttons sewn on the tag, you know, in case you lose one? i sew those buttons on. i do it with a machine, a button sewing machine, maybe you’ve seen them before i don’t know. it’s pretty cool. i mean of course you’ve seen a sewing machine before, but, i mean, not because you’re a woman! oh damn it larry you’ve done it again, talked yourself into a corner. what i mean is, everyone’s seen a sewing machine, unless they’re a little baby in which case they’re not going to remember seeing a sewing machine whether or not they’ve seen it. but i mean we all know what it looks like, and mine looks like one you’d buy at sears, except more industrial. i bet you think they’d have it done by robots but nope, it’s me. i also inspect buttons sometimes but i got in trouble because i would take the defective buttons home to use as eyes on these little rabbits that i like to sew in my spare time. here. [he produces one from his pocket.] i made one for you. her name is sammy and she is a special little bunny. she has a little question for you, if you just look in her mouth. do you … not want her? here let me show you. [he pulls a slip of paper out of the mouth and reads from it.] “larry wants to know if you’d like to go to dinner with him some night.” well sammy! i didn’t, how did you, you took the words right out of my mouth! ha ha. here, i want you to have her, she’s not covered in anthrax or anything. if she was i’d have anthrax on my hands and i’d be a dead man! ha ha. here. take it. come on, take it. hey! where are you going the bus is coming! okay well, my name is larry! that’s l-a-r-r-y! two rs! remember that! bye!