Indeterminacy 31

Once when I was a child in Los Angeles
I went downtown on the streetcar.
It was such a hot day that,
when I got out of the streetcar,
the tar on the pavement stuck
to my feet. (I was
barefoot.) Getting to the sidewalk,
I found it so hot that
I had to run to keep from blistering
my feet. I went into a
five and dime to get a root beer.
When I came to the counter
where it was sold from a large
barrel and asked for some,
a man standing on the counter high
above me said, “Wait. I’m
putting in the syrup and it’ll be
a few minutes.” As he was putting
in the last can, he
missed and spilled the sticky syrup
all over me. To
make me feel better, he
offered a free root beer.
I said, “No, thank you.”

- John Cage