Augie looked over his soggy waffle morosely. Sometimes he came to Casa de Waffle when Sandra had her shifts just to please her, but he really did hate the food. He’d almost rather eat Chico’s dry food.
“How is it, hun?” she appeared in front of him. He thought quickly.
“Oh boy, I shouldn’t have ordered two. Can’t finish this one!”
She looked down at his lone waffle, which never had a pair on the plate to begin with.
“You ordered the double?” she asked, looking momentarily confused.
“Mhmm, didn’t you notice?”
“I guess I’m just frazzled, hun. Well that’s alright, should I box that one?”
“Absolutely,” he replied. He resisted the urge to breathe a sigh of relief as she collected the decrepid waffle and cast his eyes around the restaurant. A woman with a small, neat looking child on the other side of the place and felt a small pang. Mothers, everywhere. It’s ridiculous that he should feel like this, really. He can’t exactly blanch at every mother he sees with her child.
She returned with his waffle and he bade her goodbye before walking the short distance to her apartment. He sat down discontendedly. What could he possibly do to get out of this horrible funk. It had been a dark cloud over him since the incident with Sandra. The root of the problem wasn’t his mother exactly. She was dead and there wasn’t much to make of it. But it wasn’t just that incident, he decided.
He was different. He was boring. When he’d moved here, he was full of anger, rebellion, angst. It was cliche and annoying, perhaps, but it was something. The last thing he’d done that was really him was barfing in the church, as pathetic as that sounds. Augie had turned into the kind of person he hated, wallowing in his problems, abstaining from drugs for fear of doing something stupid, falling into routine. Somehow he had digressed, slowly melted into monotony and virtue.
“There’s nothing worse,” he said, aloud, and was disgusted even by the volume of his voice.
“I am sick of routine,” he said a little louder.
“I AM FUCKING SICK OF THIS SHIT!” he burst out suddenly. Chico raised his head from the rug which he used as a bed then let it fall again, seeing that it was only his master. All that and still no consequence. He needed to DO something, not think, just do.
30 minutes later, Augie printed his airplane ticket to John Wayne airport of Orange County. 
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