So this field of gladiolas I pass on my way to work, you can see it, but are you seeing the field I mean? It’s September now, so they’re not as grand as they were earlier in the gladiola season. The ones that haven’t fallen over yet are beginning to look more solitary in their rows, outnumbered by the weeds now.

It’s a U-Pick flower field. In a dangerous maneuver, you leave the main road and drive over to the flowers on a dirt access road and park and take one of the steak knives that are in a plastic cup on the sign (“Gladiolas!”) and wander around (if the field isn’t muddy) and try to find some that are still presentable and replace the knife and briefly consider leaving without paying like other people you have seen, but you decide stealing flowers is about the limit, you can’t go lower than that under normal circumstances so you pay and even let them keep the change, “them” being the heavy metal coin box welded to the pole that holds the sign and the steak knives. You do the math in your head, slip a bill through the slit and go about your business, shaking earwigs out of the flowers and delivering them to whomever, some young person, someone your own age, or some old person who’s recovering from some operation in some hospital.

Traffic is heavy this morning since school has started and everyone is back at work. Not only back at work, even more of them are on the road this morning, driving their kids to school etc. Going past the McDonald’s you let a dump truck merge because you used to drive truck and know how it is and he’s just a working man doing his job, and because your dad used to do that too, and because you could use the automotive karma points right now.

Then, at the next intersection, the driver of that dumptruck lets another dumptruck merge, you know, professional courtesy, but luckily that second dumptruck quickly takes the next exit again so you’re only stuck behind the original sorry bastard for the first three miles or so of your commute, but not even that matters because he’s stuck behind someone else, a tractor, going even more slowly.

Then after that it’s smooth sailing until you hit the traffic jam. Accident somewhere, freeway down to one lane, you take an alternate route but so do a lot of other people. So you call your wife and warn her and she changes her plans for the day. And you ogle pedestrians on the way to work and wonder what is with these pleated plaid quasi-schoolgirl miniskirts all the women are wearing? All the women, that is, but for the real schoolgirls, who are dressed normally? Pleated plaid quasi-schoolgirl miniskirts are a traffic hazard, they should be banned, or at least subjected to a hefty tax.

That would also make a tax collector’s job more fun, probably.

There’s no fog and no deer when you get back onto the freeway. Traffic remains heavy but it’s great compared to the traffic in the town on the alternate route so you’re happy. When you get to the office, you’re a half hour late, but you’re still the first one there, but for the hot receptionist, who is wearing a pleated plaid quasi-schoolgirl miniskirt.

That gladiola field. That’s the one I mean.