For a bunch of reasons I'm not going to get into, Wednesday the 11th at work was fucking frustrating and exhausting. After work I grumpily and sleepily got onto the MAX to head home, then got off at Gateway to transfer to a Green Line train.

An older woman noticed my tote bag, which I got last November from the well-liked, longtime roadside diner the Otis Café, about 9 miles from Lincoln City. She said to me, in a kindly-older-woman-about-to-offer-you-cookies voice, "Oh, you got that from Otis Café. It's too bad it burned on July 4th."

I said "What?"

She said, in that same voice and smiling, "It burned down, it's probably a total loss." And she chuckled.

I think, think, she chuckled because what were the odds of her running into an Otis Café appreciator at that particular moment with that particular tote, but...smiling? Chuckling?

I said, flatly, "And that's funny."

She said, "Well, no, but..."

I didn't want to listen to the woman or talk to her, so I turned and walked away.

She was reporting accurate news, turns out. For not-yet-known reasons, it burned on July 4th, with no one injured but with extensive damage. It will probably have to be torn down. A former café employee is raising funds through GoFundMe to help the owners rebuild.

Still. THAT WAS SOME CHERRY-SHAPED SHIT TO PUT ON TOP OF MY CRAP DAY SUNDAE, I can tell you.

Yes, I was rude to walk away from her, but in my mood I was likely to be rude to her no matter what, and felt in the moment that that was my least-rude option.