Comcast Cable Box

          I dreamed a very strange, semi-post-apocalyptic dream in which some kind of gravity machine destroyed most of Boston by picking everything up and smashing it together. In the dead of night, I fled to the harbord and tried to fly out over the water to escape, but was inexorably drawn back in by this infernal device. I found myself running down cobblestone streets surrounded by bombed-out structures; it was late afternoon under an overcast sky. I ran past a few overturned burlap sacks brimming with euros, but paid them little mind. A tattered flier on a wall read, "Resistance meeting at La Briget, 2 p.m." and a bald, worried man hurried by, probably going the same place I was.
          Irritatingly, I was forced to bring the Comcast cable box, router and wires to work because I wouldn't be able to get into IV until 6 p.m. Work went decently well, and I jetted back to IV to walk out into Roxbury. The service center was a couple of miles out, which feels like leagues when you're walking through the hood and people give you dirty looks for being not-of-color. At one point, some dudes in an SUV threw their door open as they drove past and shouted at me incomprehensibly, which was exciting. Of course, with the way this week has been going, something had to go wrong, and it did.
          Keep in mind that I had already walked a few miles up and down hills in business attire, carrying a cable box in my arms and a heavy backpack. I reached Martin Luther King Boulevard, which begins at the intersection I reached and ends about half a mile down the road. How lost could I get? On the corner was what appeared to be a Marshall's and a Popeye's, followed by an apartment complex labeled 280. I had to get to an address in the 300s, so I set off down the street. I made it maybe a quarter of a mile before backtracking to make sure I hadn't missed the service center. This yielded no results, so I walked halfway down the street again and backtracked down the other side, just to be sure. Nothing -- and I was running out of time, with maybe forty minutes left to return the gear. If I failed to get to the center, Comcast would be liable to lay a huge fee of some kind on us; fees are their specialty. None of the buildings were numbered, including a huge series of mini-apartment complexes that had unit numbers but no apparent overall address. Finally, I headed all the way down to the end of the street, where at last, I found another numbered building: a YMCA pool labeled 120. A couple of synapses in my brain fizzled out and I trudged all the way back to that goddamn Popeye's, which turned out to be the entrance to the drabbest mini-mall I've ever seen. First of all, that's some shit. Second, why was 280 MLK like ten feet away from 330? Anyway, once I was inside the building, the return went without incident; the Comcast employee didn't point out the plastic piece I'd taped down, and even told me that Gary would be credited for a sum of money (for unused service for this month, I assume). The walk home seemed to take half as long, and another weight lifted off.
          I shared dinner with Lauren, Ryan and Sean at a Thai place called Pho & I, located just beyond the ultra-sketch College Convenience. This place is extremely underwhelming, and the food was kind of weird. I ordered teriyaki chicken with a side of peanut butter sauce; the chicken tasted peculiar, as did the vegetables that came with it (how did they mess those up, they didn't even have sauce on them...) and I was happy to dip everything in the PB sauce to mute the other tastes. I do not plan to return to this place. Aside: The Transit Police's motorcycles look awesome. They have a kind of old school look, and I love the white/blue/silver theme.

Officer Smoov at your service.