SO I STARTED BRINGING MY OWN, in my own damn aluminum bucket like the ones the steak house used to have, when they served peanuts, but not the same kind of bucket exactly, since mine was to tote beer around in and had the “Miller High Life” logo painted on the side, but the logo was worn in spots, the “f” almost completely erased so that it looked more like “Li e,” which I think is pretty funny because of my situation because when the server came to my table that one time and asked what I was doing with a bucket of peanuts I told her I had a non-peanut allergy, meaning I was allergic to not having peanuts to shell while I waited for my sirloin, which I always order as medium well but if it’s well done I’m okay with that but if there’s any pink in the center I always send it back, and I told her they used to have buckets like these at every table and customers could just crack and eat to their heart’s content and toss the shells on the floor, then I cracked a shell open to demonstrate and her eyes grew wide and her mouth grew wide and I got pissed and red in the face because it was one of those shells that looks like it should hold two peanuts but there’s only one inside, and the only peanut is small and dark and shriveled, so I tossed it along with the dusty shell on the floor, which is linoleum now, not hardwood like it was when they used to serve peanuts by the bottomless bucketful, and dug my heel into it all so they’d know I was serious about it, and she inhaled and spun around and stomped off and returned with the manager, who said I should probably leave, more like a command than a suggestion, and since he looked more like a bouncer than a manager I said fine and dumped my bucket of peanuts on the floor and kicked them around on my way out, and from the corner of my eye I saw a couple of kids drop to their hands and knees trying to collect as many as they could like they were at an Easter Egg hunt.
— ANDREW CAREAGA
Andrew Careaga is a retired marketing and public relations practitioner whose writing has appeared in The Argyle, Frazzled Lit, Flash Fiction Magazine, In Short, Roi Fainéant, Spillwords, and elsewhere. One of his works was nominated for the Best Micro Fiction Anthology of 2026. He lives in Rolla, Missouri, and enjoys a good medium-rare ribeye every once in a while.