Portmanteau

On the way to work someone's Fairy Godmother is standing at the bus stop. A tall black woman with a pointy hat. She looks sad, and cold. Green eye-shadow draws circles around her eyes like large clovers. The ruffles of her gold sequin dress peeking out from the bottom of her long, grey, puffy coat. Shoes of ruby red reflect the morning sun like twinkling stars. Her wings are under there somewhere, her wand probably stuffed deep in her pocket. Catching the 8:20 to where ever.

I pass a tractor trailer who's mudflaps have been worn down from where the spinning double tires had come in contact with them. They look like muddy underwear. The kind you'd get from playing in a creek all day when you were nine. Catching frogs and looking at a stolen copy of Playboy with your friends. Muddbutt is what we called it.

In the lunchroom I put a wax cup upsidedown on top of my opened can of soda and for a second I feel like I'm on an airplane. I get peanuts out of the vending machine for sixty-five cents.

Standing there by the sink, the woman next to me says, "Did you know the plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets?" I nod and drink more soda out of my soda-cup-hat.

I feel like I'm flying to California for the first time, on the descent, and my ears are about to pop.