The weather has turned again, so I reach for a jacket I've not touched for several days as I hurry out the door. I always stumble a bit across my own home's threshold - this time, it's because I'm pondering the wisdom of the lady I know with a dozen or more coats, for all the combinations of occasion and weather we have here that might call for proper wrapping. It certainly seems I always want a different coat.

It strikes me as a brilliancy, that we live our lives this way - so many chances to find preciousness in our pocketses. So many rediscoveries, reminders of moments charming in retrospect. This time, in an inside pocket meant for things disastrous to lose, I find the eighteen inches of register receipt that went with the purchase of a four-inch beverage. Most of its length was a point-of-sale invitation to participate in a contest, which I received on a night where my own invitations to participate didn't go over so well. (It was a notable evening regardless - in this place, most notable for finally putting an end to the "rename Frank Charlemagne" movement. It turns out, my friends, that we ain't done here at all.)

Thinking back over the oddly post-ironic speech that went along with the invitation's presentation, it seems that karma demands that I follow through in the matter. At my next opportunity, I rattle the keys, answer the questions, make my usual good-faith effort.

As best I'm able, I tell the truth. I don't think the corporation envisioned the ways in which their standard marketing questions could be more difficult than expected.

"Did the employees recognize you and greet you by name?"

I find myself pleased to continue to fit neither into "Yes", nor into "No".