paul·a·ver

“Check your oil?” the attendant asks. His blonde hair shines in the morning sunlight. “Nah, thanks. I’ll get it next time,” I say. The filling station up the way from my house, Pruitt’s, still has full service. I, along with most of us in the neighborhood, pull up to the self, but that just means we pump our own gas. We still get the same neighborly treatment as anybody else.

“Thanks for comin in,” says the avuncular election official behind gold-rimmed glasses and beneath a white Friar Tuck haircut as I slide my ballot into the machine. “Come back as soon as you’re able.”

They’re not much, because I took them with my phone while running, but I finally got up some pics from the Chicago Marathon.

“I’ll need a license with that,” the pharm tech tells me.