It’s Sunday morning, and I am at work. I hate working on Sundays. Today is a particularly bad Sunday to work, because there is a huge storm over Cayman. It is pissing down rain and the water is rough, which means that we will not have many (or, more likely, any) divers today. So I am reduced to the role of shop-keeper, sitting in an empty dive shop, making conversation with the few tourists who wander in looking for t-shirts, listening to the same tired jokes I’ve heard a thousand times before that make each tourist think he is super-clever.
I did have one blog-worthy happening already today, though. We rent out tanks to divers, and they are allowed to keep them out after hours and return them the next day. Yesterday we rented a tank to one of our regulars, a taxi-driver here on the island. He is a Caymanian, and I believe that in addition to driving a cab he also cleans the undersides of boats for some extra money (which is why he needed the tank).
This morning at around 8:30, he arrived in his cab, driving through the lake that is currently our parking lot, to return the tank. As he got out of his car, I noticed he threw a brown paper bag into our trash can. He came in, made some small talk about having to work on Sundays, paid for the tank, and then went back outside, standing in front of our building under the entrance-way for some cover from the rain. This was pretty normal behavior, until he reached into his cab, pulled out another brown paper bag, and then proceeded to take the top off the beer bottle hidden within and have a nice big swig. At 8:30. A.M. He stayed out in front of the building and drank his beer, and then headed off to start his working day. A quick check of the trash can after he left told me that the beer I watched him drink was not his first of the day.
Now, I’m not one to judge, but when you’re on your second beer of the morning at 8:30am, you may have a slight problem.
All I can say is that this is one of the rare times that I’m happy they don’t pay me enough to be able to afford to take taxis on this island.
I hope you are all enjoying your Sunday. Go out and have fun, and think of me as I sit in the shop all day, bored out of my head, pretending I give a damn about some tourist telling me he visited Cayman 18 years ago and making some stupid joke about the weather.