Just a nothing thing I noticed that I thought was nostalgic.
When Hal was thinking about his mother's death, the description included her falling at the water cooler and shattering the water bottle. For all you young whippersnappers, 5 gallon water cooler bottles used to be glass. It probably really sucked to be a water bottle delivery man back then.
A long time ago, we had a lady from Venezuela that worked at our company and she told a story of her son almost bleeding to death in a Venezuelan grocery store becasue he was picking up one of those glass bottles and it broke and severely cut his arm.
Anyway, sometimes I just notice those old things in these stories.