Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it… ever… was…

Daylight was streaming in around the blinds when I woke up. I was late.

I got ready. The jeans hadn’t dried completely since I did the laundry last night. I put them on anyway.

Getting into my car, I noticed that the shopkeeper in the store across the street was actually in her shop. I’d never seen that before. And my car started this time.

On the bridge, I avoided three cyclists who were riding in traffic instead of the bike lane half a metre to the right, then I passed the brand-new Starbucks in the new Pivotal building. It was full.

I stopped at a dozen or so stop lights on Robson. They all turned red. I then turned left, then right, then left before parking the car in the city parkade. A worker with a white pickup was sweeping used drug paraphernalia from the corners.

As I crossed the street, two lumbering garbage trucks stopped side-by-side for a chat, like elephants at the watering hole, and a rusty van drove past with blue smoke roiling from a broken tailpipe. The produce shop where they accept returned lettuce wasn’t open yet and neither was that new Korean restaurant next door, where they had finished their new patio.

Construction workers shouted to each other from the top of the building that they built where the 7-11 used to be, and a man jumped from his car to shove a video box into the slot at Blockbuster, then I did the same. I turned left then right then left and left again and into the building and up the elevator and beeped my way into my floor and sat down at my cubicle and began to work.

Then I stopped for a few moments and wrote this before continuing with my day.