I walked down the hill to buy some beer. I was walking back up the hill when I spotted a man hiding behind a telephone pole. It was Jessie Sweet. He started to laugh when I noticed him. He had a dog with him, a tiny hairless thing with an attitude.
“What are you up to?” he asked.
“I bought some beer at the market.”
“Can I have one?”
“Sure.”
I gave him a beer and he popped it open right there and then.
“I see you still have your dog walking gig, “ I said.
“Yeah, I walked the five of them separately today, this is the fifth, I’m exhausted.”
He took a sip of his beer. He was wearing a pair of colorful swim trunks and an oddly matched T-shirt with white tennis shoes. He had a pair of sunglasses pulled over his prescription glasses. It was an unusual look, but it somehow worked for him.
“Why’d you walk them separately?”
“So they’d have time to themselves.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
Jessie has a heart of gold. The last time I saw him we drove to a Mexican seafood restaurant and ordered a couple of fish burritos from the drive thru window. Somehow I ended up paying for the burritos with my credit card. I signed the slip of paper and gave the merchant copy to the young woman at the window.
“Did you tip her?” Jessie asked.
“No, I didn’t tip her. It’s a drive thru window, you don’t tip at a drive thru window."
“You’re suppose to tip her.”
“When you go to a McDonalds drive thru do you tip there?” I asked.
“No.”
“So why is this restaurant different?”
“It just is.”
“You could have told me beforehand."
“I thought you’d figure it out.”
"My friend didn't know he was suppose to tip you," he yelled to the girl at the window.
“That’s okay,” the girl said.
That pretty much sums up my relationship with Jessie. It’s friendship marred by miscommunication, but like I said, he has a heart of gold, so I put up with him in doses.
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