Lessons From the Kissing Booth

So far today:

On the phone, my dad asks me what's going on. I say, "It's raining on my head, actually" and right then the sky clears. I immediately declare myself magic.

There are at least a dozen people playing different types of music downtown. My steps change to match each one of them, although I don't realize that it's happened until I reach the next one and can feel my stride adjusting itself.

I'm there to buy socks, so I go to the sock store. There's no one else there, and I feel the need to justify myself to the people working there. I say, "I need new ones because all my socks have holes in them." They don't appear to care, and I don't blame them.

Later, I go into a different store and one of the girls remembers me. She greets me by name and then looks at me again. "I like your new haircut," she tells me. "Bangs are good for you." I'm absurdly gratified; I like my new haircut too.

On the way home, the bus passes a big gray box with "Gentrification kills!" on the side of it. I read it wrong, though, as "Centrification kills!" and can't figure out what it means. A few blocks later, I figure it out.