Joe Waved Hello

It's been a LONG week. I left work a little past 6 today and ran errands making pit stops all along my way home. I stopped by to see if I could catch an old friend (I could not), returned some library books, picked up a new copy of a John Irving and then swung through the post office. I was so beat by the time I crossed the river that for a moment I stood still in my tracks, leaned my back against the railing and just closed my eyes. I looked like a moron. I managed to continue shuffling down Chestnut Street and mosied my way over to Walnut. I walked past a condo building in which I used to spend a lot of time with friends and saw, out of the corner of my eye, a wildly waving hand on the other side of the glass revolving entrance. It was Joe, the gentle soft-spoken old man who has been manning that door for as long as I've been at Penn, if not longer. I smiled back at him too tired to lift my hands which were weighed down by a grocery bag on the left and my handbag in the right. Still mildly disoriented, fatigued, and depressed, I silently thanked Joe for making my day with his smallest of gestures. It didn't make the puss-filled pimple forming above my lip go away, but hey, I'll take what I can get to make myself feel better.