The regular morning routine had become a drab slog of heaving off the duvet and hauling on the ‘game face’ needed for the day.
This morning was a veritable Disney movie in comparison. Greg swore blind that, if he had opened his windows, those gnarly pigeons would have broken into song.
Greg’s milk was off by a good two days. No bother. In the coffee it went. An extra spoon of sugar would sort that out.
The radio was blaring out some auto-tuned schmaltz.
Nevermind.
Turn it up.
Sing-a-long.
Someone had been using his butter, Greg found, after discovering crumbs inside the tub.
Proof of trespass. This would normally be a de-railer but not today.
No way.
Today, Greg was going to let everything slide.
Greg even recreated the Cruise skid from Risky Business in the hallway between bathroom and living room.
Twice.
You see, today was the day that Greg hit the roads. Greg was on the ‘early grit’.
Greg was about to make the roads safe. In a hi-vis vest and at the wheel of a hulking orange beast.
The shifts were irregular and either super early or super late.
But he loved them.
Absolutely loved them.
Greg had, for the last three months, been mixing in bigger stones and pebbles into the regular mix.
His desk drawers were packed tight with shingle and shale.
His bath full to brimming with picked up pieces of stone. Some he found when out jogging, dog walking. Bits brought back from car parks.
Road sides. Children’s playgrounds.
The dimensions needed to be exact (or thereabouts), so that they were big enough to do some damage and small enough to not clog the machine.
This years Windshield Cup was going to be his. Bruce ‘The Behemoth’ Baskins had won for the past three years straight and now was the time for Greg to step up.
Ten points for a chip. Twenty for a crack.
On a day like today, cold, crisp, bright, Greg reckoned he could rack up at least 200 points, and with his smuggled in payload, he could easily do double the damage.
Greg chuckled as he pulled on his thermals.
He was still laughing when he dragged on his beanie over cropped hair and flaking scalp.
Greg reached for the heavy duty jacket. Stepped into the hard toed boots.
His pockets were heavy and full with some ‘extra ballast’. He practically skipped to the door of his apartment.
Whistling as he went.
‘Yep’, he thought, ‘days don’t get much better than this’.
