COFFEE AND TERRORISM. Part Deux.

God is taunting me. He/She obviously read my previous posting and thought to Him/Herself:

So, you like to racially profile perfect strangers? Two can play the game!!!

Evidently, the game has begun. This morning, when I popped into my local Dunkin Donuts, I nearly dropped my small cappuccino with an extra-shot when Verena, the Eastern European clerk from last summer, emerged from the back of the store wearing a Muslim headcovering and a long sleeve black leotard beneath her Dunkin Donuts shirt.

The veil was pinned beneath her chin and her face was utterly free of make-up. She kept her eyes downward, looking up only briefly to take orders. Last summer, she smiled at customers and wore her mousy-brown hair free and uncovered.

Now, of course, I am consumed with wondering whether Verena and the sleazeball from last week are related. Now, of course, my paranoia level has gone up to Level Red.

And it didn't help that five seconds later, I was trotting on the treadmill at Straub's Fitness three stores down, listening to Michael Chertoff talk about the hunch he has that a large-scale terrorist plot might be hatching for a city such as New York. Possibly this summer.

No specific information about a threat, just the hunch from the director of Homeland Security.

Of course, this could be a ploy from the Bushies to get everyone all paranoid and nervous and deflect from the fact that the troop surge in Iraq is a huge failure and the frikkin war in Iraq is a huge failure and the Iraq government is a huge failure and every frikkin thing that has happened over on Bush's watch has been a huge failure.

It's hard to figure out where to focus my paranoia.