Short Story - "Routine"

Routine

(A Short Story of 1,677 Words)
Byron Lin – Revised 4/23/10

Day after day, it's always the same.
Nothing ever changes.
Well of course, why else is it called a "routine"? After all, it’s a fixed pattern of certain behaviors. I guess you could call it a habit, too. So imagine my surprise when I rolled over to find Ginny not there like she would usually be.
Well, that's not part of the routine.
"Come on, sleepyhead, rise and shine."

Then she lobbed a pillow at my head, already up and fully dressed.
"Mmfh," I grunted, more out of annoyance than anything else. "What time is it?"
"Early," she answered with a shrug. "Six-thirtyish..?"
"Mmfh," I grunted again. "Too early, come back around lunch time."
"Oh c'mon," she giggled. "I've got coffee and donuts."
Well then, coffee and donuts, huh? Bless her.
"What kind?"
"Chocolate icing with rainbow sprinkles. Your favorite."
"You know me too well," I muttered, glancing at the alarm clock and fumbling in the dark for my glasses. Ginny clambered onto the bed. Instead of doing anything naughty, she scooted past me to the window blinds.
This would not end well.
She drew open the blinds. I don't know what she meant for to happen, since the sun wasn't up yet. But the streetlight outside hurt my eyes like hell; why did she have to open the window?
"C'mon Brandon," she goaded me. "It's Monday. You love Mondays."
"I hate Mondays," I said into my pillow, trying to keep away from the blasted light.
"Not anymore," she laughed. She leaned over and started poking me. I shook my arm at her feebly.

"Go bother Jake or something." She got to her feet, crossed to the door, and stuck out her tongue. "You're no fun," she said.
"Ugh," was my only response. I like sleeping in. I don't get how she's so hyper in the mornings. Then again, she's almost always like that. After lying in bed a few more minutes, I figured I couldn't lie there anymore. Might as well take a shower and get woken up by something else than the overly-energetic girlfriend.

*
By the time I had gotten out, clean as a whistle, and pulled on a t-shirt over a black long sleeve and black jeans with black socks, and stumbled into the kitchen, Ginny was putting donuts on a plate and pouring coffee. At the same time, Jake looked up from the sports page, and his sesame bagels, ridiculously loaded with cream cheese and raspberry jelly. He had coffee, too.
"Morning," he said shortly, and that was all.
"Morning," I yawned. "What are you doing up this early?"
He pointed his thumb at Ginny, who had her back turned to us and humming loudly as she finished with her breakfast. An empty bowl of Fruit Loops (she'd left the box on the counter) and glass of orange juice was in the sink.
"I've got to go to work," she announced, as she kissed both of us on the cheek with a grin and ruffled our hair. She treated us like kids, honestly. "See you boys later."
"Bye," both of us said, none too enthusiastically.

*
Jake and I had been rooming together since college ended. With school out of the way, it was time to get a move on into the "real world". Why is it called that, anyways? Not as though the world is any less real just because we weren't adults until now-ish. Ginny had her own place, but she liked to sleep over a lot and look after us, since we were the typical slackers.
Don't get me wrong, we kept the place clean and bright pretty much, but it wasn't that big. Our apartment was a plain old flat, two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room. Video games crowded the living room, besides all the other stuff we had in there, like a big screen plasma TV (a graduation present from my parents) and numerous pieces of furniture you'd see in any apartment - couch, easy chairs, and coffee table. Besides, the rent wasn't too unreasonable - something around $600 a month. I think. That might be on the low end of the spectrum. Here's another Ginny helped us with: finances. We probably would have been evicted a long time ago if she wasn't around.
Speaking of which, money, that's right, jobs; what did we do besides hang out a lot? Ginny was a waitress at the Old West Steakhouse, and also worked at the Heavenly Bodies nightclub. Trust me, she'd fit right in. Jake was a graphic designer, and I worked at the local electronics store, Super Deal. Yeah I know, the name is stupid, blame my boss, he owns the place. Don't ask me why there wasn't some bigger name electronics store around. Bottom line is, we had enough more than enough to sustain ourselves. It's not like we spent our money on a golden toilet, or other habits besides subscriptions to certain magazines or websites and online gaming services. Yeah, moving on…
Jake was the one who basically worked from home, so we passed the time playing Halo 3 and Rock Band until one of us had to get up and be productive. Ginny would always watch us play Halo 3, but she loved to sing in Rock Band. Jake always played guitar, leaving me to fail at the drums. And he was a lot better than me at Halo, which wasn't fair.
I had to go to work around 3 that day, so Jake said he should get started on something for a software company from New York; must have not been a big one to not have an in house designer. Super Deal was your basic Best Buy/Circuit City place. I always had to put on a grey dress shirt and wear slacks and dress shoes, because we the Geek Squad have to look presentable. Good thing I cleaned myself up this morning.
Work was as it always was, predictably boring. Mondays were mundane and monotonous. Nothing exciting ever happens at the beginning of a week, at least not in this store. There weren't that many customers today, either, as in none. Apparently, no one was crazy enough to brave the twenty-degree weather, not for gadgetry and not for ice cream from the shop around the corner. Generally, January is not the best time for that, especially if there's still snow on the ground, even if it's been melting for the last couple of days.
"Excuse me," a voice brought me back to reality from pondering over an inventory stock list on my clipboard. I had pulled the pen from over my ear and was just about to check something off when I looked up.
Gulp.
A customer.
Not just any customer, either.