Charachters in my daily routine

Do you ever have those days that seem different than others...almost surreal? Where you feel like you are inside the eye of a tornado, just sitting in silence, looking at the swirling chaos going around you?

Today that feeling was extra strong. Maybe it was because I go through the same motions all the time and eventually they come to feel automatic. I know what time to wake up every morning and what time I need to leave the house... exactly 8:02. I know my toothpaste will have the same minty flavor, my shower will slightly leak onto the floor and my dog will lick the drops of water off my leg when I get out. I know that the same voice will be on the radio when I turn my car on and that I will make the same right turns, take the same freeway exit and will use the same alarm code to get into the office. Sometimes I just want something to happen, even if its bad, to break up the monotony. I can honestly understand how Harold Ramis came up with the movie, Groundhogs Day.

Within my routine there have also entered other human beings. Like extras in a movie they stand there like cardboard cutouts with a heartbeat. Today when i went to Starbucks, which I go to about twice a week, I had an eerie feeling of being on repeat. There in the corner was the same bunch of old men who rhythmically seem to laugh on cue, then the same motorcycle cop came in with his knee high boots, waxy skin, and permanent smile to show his unnaturally white teeth. The same Starbuck's worker was standing there behind the same vitrine filled with the same pastries looking like a giant floating head full of Starbucks cheer. She is an older woman of my mothers age with a genuine smile that always makes me feel happy when talking to her. I wonder if her life has made her perfect this cheery facade, or if her smile is in fact real? I wonder why she is working here at her age? Did she have a hard life? Was she dependent on man for most of it and is now on her own with no skills other than motherhood under her belt? Or is she just bored and wanted a job where she could spread her abundance of cheer? I also wonder about the old laughing men in the corner, what is their story? Are they old friends from the past, are they a support group for widowed men, or are they a group of old homosexual swingers? What about that cop, he seems so vain in his appearance, what does he do when he is not working...does he love his boots so much that he keeps them on during sex, does he use Vaseline on his face every night to avoid wrinkles? Who are these extras that appear in my life over and over again?

I want to know their routines, and I want to know what their secrets are. What story have they written for themselves to bring them to this Starbucks where for a moment in history our lives all collide together.

For now, my imagination is all I have.