The van lays an egg? in A small but passable life.

The woman here at Hardee's, her name is Jackie (I had to ask when I first came in tonight), just came over to my table and said she had just refused to serve someone at the drive-thru window. It was a car containing cretins from the westboro baptist church, here to protest at the candlelight vigil for Hailey on Sunday. The car did have Kansas plates. Hopefully they'll find the same reception elsewhere. I remember a couple of years ago when a soldier came home to Crackerville East in a casket from Iraq and the westboro cretins were seen on the square before the funeral. Next thing you know there are a lot of people running home and returning with firearms strapped on and carrying rifles. Needless to say, all those cars with Kansas plates seemed to disappear, quickly.

Anyway, Wednesday night at midnight it was 56 degrees in the van. The second night in a row for the summer sleeping bag. The sound of distant thunder at 2am followed by a brief spurt of rain. When I crawled out of the sleeping bag at 11am the wind was HOWLING and the van was warm at 70 degrees. I sat and read Walt Whitman on the kindle. At 2pm the temperature started to drop, FAST. It dropped to 57 degrees in about 20 minutes. Fast enough drop that the windows fogged up from the difference in temperature between outside and inside. I decided to pack up and go over to Hardee's.

The day before I had changed into street socks and pulled on my pants sans poly-pro long johns. Now I was ready to change back into what I've been wearing all winter. I took off my street socks and went to tuck them into my street shoes that have been resting on the floorboard in front of the driver's seat since sometime in November. And lying there against a shoe was an egg. An egg? What the hell? I had to sit down and reset my brain. Seriously. There hasn't been eggs in the van since the last trip out to the river back in 2010. And I know for sure there hasn't been a chicken in the van. Nope, no chicken in the van. I'm still sitting there barefoot in my chair with an egg in my hand. Thinking. An egg? The van is always locked when unattended, but unlocked when I'm in it. I'm a very light sleeper due to the sketchy places I've often had to sleep, and my military training as a hired killer. The Saran wrap covering the driver's busted out window was undisturbed. An egg?

I packed up and dropped the egg in my coat pocket. I thought about cracking the egg open to see how fresh it was, but decided it wouldn't clarify anything about HOW the damn thing ended up where I'd found it.

When I left Hardee's I left the egg outside on the windowsill. Let the mystery ride on.

Last night at midnight it was 39 degrees in the van. I had already remade the bed, placing my goosedown sleeping bag back on top.

This morning I was up before 9am. I decided to walk to the library to return the last two books. There were three more books waiting for me on the 'hold' shelf.

I walked to the store for a quart of milk, a can of chili, and Keebler Grasshoppers. I packed up my grocery tote and dropped one of the new books into it and headed over to the student union. After I settled in it seemed like I'd not spent the last week in the van eating nothing but bologna sandwiches. It was nice. A newspaper. A book. Boots off. My usual chair. Nice.

I stayed until nearly 7pm.

And now here I sit once again.

Oh yeah, I watched "Gravity" on megashare.info. It was an awesome movie. I also started watching "American Horror Story" on Netflix again. I'm up to episode 10 of season 1. Things are getting weird.

And winter will be back for at least the entire next week. Only one month until Spring though.