I woke up early today to a foggy and cool Northern California morning, my persistent body clock informing me that it was not 6am (as the clock indicated), but rather 9am (the time on the east coast). My mind tried to reason with it, but my body was having none of it, so I was up and out of bed. Now, if I am going to be out of bed at 6am I am going to need one thing: coffee. Surprisingly, the nearest Starbuck’s is 3 miles away (I didn’t know it was still possible to be 3 miles from a Starbuck’s), so, with an ever increasing sense of urgency, I hopped in the car and headed of to the nearest palace of the bean, only to arrive drop-jawed at the sight before me. There was a line.

Before you think another thought, you have to understand that to me, arriving at a location outside of the house at 6:20am is a special occasion, a holiday of sorts, something that may only happen 2-3 times in a year — or in a decade. And if that special occasion happens to fall, as it did today, on a Saturday morning, then I feel confident that I will be virtually alone in whatever endeavor I deem to undertake, especially if it involves going into an establishment and purchasing something. Of course, this isn’t just anything, it’s coffee, and other people want it just as bad as me. As I stand in line reflecting on this fact, I realize that not everybody spends their life working until 11 on a Friday night, only to come home energized from performing, unable to sleep. Perhaps it is not as bizarre as I think to be standing in line for coffee at 6:20am. Maybe my initial thought, that strange things are afoot this morning was not the proper reaction at all. Then I pull out my phone and read my email. There is a forwarded message from my Mom:

“Giant Sinkhole Opens Near Denver City”

What?! A Sinkhole? Denver City? I pause for a moment, thinking… Denver City is in the news… Denver City is in the news because of a sinkhole…

You see, when I was very young we lived in a tiny town in West Texas called Denver City, a town so remote that you’d need a guide and a mule to find it, and even that probably won’t work. My Dad used to joke that the the town was so small they had to put both city limits signs on 1 post. We had a volunteer fire department with two firemen: the guy with the pickup and the guy with the garden hose. You get the idea. Now, there is an Associated Press news article in my inbox about — off all things — Denver City. And not just any common news article, no. This one is about a giant sinkhole that is 70 yards long, 67 yards wide, and 50 feet deep and is just 2 miles outside of town, a sinkhole large enough to swallow up a city block. Now that is bizarre.

I move forward in line now, inching closer to coffee, totally unsure whether it is normal or not to wait in line at a Starbuck’s at 6:20am, wondering what other aberrations this day has in store.

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Tagged: rubbish