Getting Dirty in Hawaii - Part 2

This is the continuation of a story which can be found here: PART ONE!

--

I went to the other side of the lookout, a little upset by what had happened.  I had just wanted to show that guy my neat experiments.  It wasn’t my intention to smack his wife in the face with a dirty weed.

I leaned over the balcony with my hands in my pockets, letting the wind blast me in the face for a bit.  For about 5 minutes I pouted, annoyed that guilt was keeping me from my playtime. 

Then I saw it.  The perfect weed.  All remorse from my previous transgression was wiped from my mind as the colossal stalk shimmered in the twilight.  It beckoned to me.  I quickly looked around but couldn’t find the couple I had florally assaulted earlier.  The coast was clear.

I yanked it out of the loamy soil.  A huge clod of dirt came up with the extensive root system.  This was my Mona Lisa, my Sistine Chapel, my masterpiece.

Wasting no time, I heaved the heavy weed over the edge of the balcony.  The wind was caught by surprise and buckled under this ambush of vegetation.  The weed dropped low down the cliff face.  Then the wind found its resolve and with a great rush pushed the several-pound weed high into the air.  I watched it as it soared like a bird of prey up onto the second tier balcony.

A female voice swore mightily.  I heard a man say “Did he hit you again?”  The woman from before leaned her head out over the balcony above me.  I ducked behind a plaque where I could see her but she couldn’t see me.

She scanned the lower tier like the Eye of Mordor atop her windy tower.  Her face was covered in a fresh layer of dirt and there were leaves in her hair.  “I’m gonna find you, you little shit!”  she spat. 

I stayed frozen behind the plaque until she retreated back over the edge of the balcony to pick the dirt out of her teeth.

I ducked low and scampered over to the path that would take me back to the car.  On the way, I found my parents and sister reading another one of the many plaques.

“Okay, time to go.  Let’s go.   Here we go.”  I said as I power-walked past them.

“You’re ready to go?”  My dad asked.

“Yup, yup, yup.  Let’s go to the car.  We should go.  I’m thirsty for some more papaya juice.  Let’s all get papaya juice!  To the car!”  I grabbed my mom’s hand and semi-dragged her down the path.

I led my family back to the rental, my head on a constant pivot, looking for any sign of the man or his agrophilic wife. 

When we arrived, I jerked on the handle of my door relentlessly.

“Open.  Open.  Open, open.  Openopenopenopenopenopenopenopenopenopen-“

Finally the door unlocked and I jumped inside.  I hastily buckled my seatbelt and slumped down as far as I could in my seat and still see through the window.

My family took their seats and my dad put his keys in the ignition.

Wrrrnrnnrnrnrnnrnrnr.  WrrnNNrrnrnrnrrrrr.  The car wouldn’t start.

Are you kidding me?  Of all the times to get car trouble it happens when I’m being pursued by a woman who I’ve inadvertently just committed a class 2 misdemeanor against with dirt and wind.

My dad was still fiddling with the car when I saw the woman and her husband coming up the path from the lookout.  She looked like she was playing to win in a Gollum lookalike contest.  Her hair was messy and matted to her head, there were still leaves on her clothes, and she was, for some reason, walking with an exaggerated hunch.  Her eyes darted back and forth as she seethed with anger.

I sunk even further into my seat.  I was sure to do this as slowly as possible because I’m pretty sure that, like large carnivorous dinosaurs, angry women’s vision is based on movement.

A moment later a knock came at the window.

“SHANANYONION!”*  I shrieked, rolling my body up into the fetal position.

I heard two male voices offer my father a jump for the car.  I peeked out from my womb-shaped defenses to see two Mormon-ly dressed young men.  I unfurled a bit further to look out of the window.  There was no sign of the couple anywhere.

The Mormons pulled their car over to ours and connected the jumper cables.  After a few minutes we were able to get the car started.

“Okay, so we can go now!  Let’s go.  We should go.  Remember the papaya juice you promised us?  Papaya!”  I rambled, my eyes never ceasing from their fervent scan of the parking lot.

“We’ve got to sit here and let the car run for a bit.  The battery needs to recharge.”

Mother of God, I’m going to die here. 

After 15 additional nerve shredding minutes my father finally decided that the car was safe to drive back to our hotel.  I spent the entire drive looking out of the back window trying to see if there were any vehicles following us.

The paranoia didn’t fully subside until the next morning when I finally got my glass of papaya juice.

The moral of the story?

Always carry papaya juice.  Seriously, it's delicious.

--Footnote-- 

(*this is a precise phonetic transcription of the sound that I made)  

Getting Dirty in Hawaii - Part 1

My family and I visited Hawaii one summer.  I felt and still feels when I tell people this that they perceive me as saying “Oh yes, my family summers in Hawaii.  Doesn’t yours?  Hmm, I seem to have misplaced my monocle.”

Despite this, Hawaii was beautiful and stuffed to the gills with things to do.  We didn’t get to see even half of what the islands offered and I would go back in a second, if not just to spitefully worsen my own cognitive dissonance.

One particular evening that sticks out in my mind is the night we visited Nuuanu Pali Lookout. 

Nuuanu Pali Lookout is a cliff on Oahu which overlooks a huge section of the island.  From the lookout you can see not only the sprawling beauty and sheer majesty of nature but also expanses of angular gray objects made by humans who said “that’s a really beautiful waterfall, but you know, we could really use an additional parking lot for the casino.”

The lookout is positioned at the vertex of a V-shaped mountain range which funnels and intensifies winds coming in from the North-East.  This turns Nuuanu Pali Lookout into a sort of natural wind tunnel. The winds here usually hover around 45mph but can spike to upwards of 80mph.  Scientists have attributed the high volume and speed of the winds as yet another example of something wanting to get the hell away from Canada.

Our rental car groaned with exertion as we drove up the steep, winding passage to get to the lookout.  When we mercifully arrived at the lot at the top of the mountain, the car dry-heaved and stalled.

“Well that was good timing.”  My father chuckled as the car sat, silently weeping below him.

I jumped out of the car, excited to be reminded of what wind felt like.  I ran back and forth oscillating between 25 feet and 5 feet in front of my family as they walked leisurely to the lookout.

When we got there, it was pretty damn windy.

45mph doesn’t seem that fast when you’re driving a Hummer through a School Zone, but getting slapped in the face with air going that speed really puts it in perspective.

It wasn’t so bad just standing a little ways in from the edge, but if you leaned over the concrete balcony, the wind felt like it was trying to rip thoughts out of your head.  There were two tiers of concrete balconies to allow more people to experience the full force of the wind.

A plaque nearby informed that the concrete balconies had been installed because too many people had tried to lean over the cliff’s edge to let the wind hold them up against gravity.  The plaque went on to say that, while this anti-gravity stunt was possible, the wind speed was variable at best and that rapid drops in velocity had led many daredevils to their demise.

I was intrigued. 

Clearly I wasn’t going to try to lean over the edge; I was too much of a pussy for that.  But I did want to see wind besting gravity.

I looked around for things to toss over the edge of the cliff.  I picked up a little rock and threw it over the edge.  I couldn’t see where it went.  I tried tossing a few more over, but I kept losing them against the scenery below.

Then I saw a weed growing up from a crack in the concrete platform by my feet.  I bent over and plucked it from the ground.  Dirt clung to the roots as I held it up in front of me.

I tossed it over the edge.

The weed fell a foot or two before slowly coming to a halt.  It hovered in midair for a moment before a sudden burst of wind shot it violently upward into the air over my head.

That was awesome.  I started frantically pulling up all the weeds I could find and hurling them over the edge. 

I could tell that the plaque was right about the varying wind speed.  Some of the weeds would shoot up into the air like a patriot missile while others would simply float lazily back toward me.  I was experimenting with varying amounts of dirt on the roots when a guy walked up to me and asked what I was doing.

“Oh, check this out.”  I said to him as I flung the weed I was holding over the edge.

The weed disappeared over the edge of the balcony.  A bit later it slowly crept back up into view like Aladdin does right before he shows Jasmine he has a magic carpet.  It was drifting back toward us when it suddenly diverted its path and rushed toward a woman standing off to our left.

She looked up right as it was about to hit her chin.

“Oh what the ffff…”  The woman made a sound like a deflating balloon as the dirt clod exploded on her face.  Dirt went into her open mouth and down her blouse.  She spun in a circle while swearing and shaking out her clothes.

“Oh, gosh, I’m really sorry.”  I said.

The man ran over to the woman.  “Honey, are you okay?”  She said nothing but glared up at me.

Oh shit, these two are together.

“I’m very sorry,”  I repeated.  “I didn’t mean to do that, I was just showing…”  Her venomous stare cut me off.  I stammered a few unintelligible things and then slinked away while her husband tried to get the dirt out of her ears.

--

This story isn't even over!  Find the rest here:  PART TWO!

One Winter, My Family Sledded Into a Tree

In high school, it never failed that when we got enough snow to cancel school, it always fell on the weekend and had always melted or been plowed sufficiently for school on Monday.  For whatever reason, Neptune, the God of liquid snow, seemed to want me to complete my education.

One such weekend, we got about a half-foot of snow and my family decided that we wanted to go sledding.

There are two hills near my house.  One is in the middle of the road in front of my house.  The other is in the back yard.

The road, interestingly, is the safer of the two hills.  We get very little traffic on my street and even less during a snow storm.  The disappointing thing is that this hill is deceptively tame.  It seems steep when you accidentally find yourself going 55 down it in an SUV, but when you’re in a sled going slower than a house for sale in Detroit, it’s not very rewarding.

The other option is my tree-filled back yard.  My family opted to sled down this hill. 

We stood in slippery pants and beanies at the top of the hill for ten minutes trying to scope out a route that wouldn’t necessitate having a rescue helicopter on standby.  Worse yet, we were using the saucer-type sleds which have no steering mechanism whatsoever.

My dad pointed out a path near the edge of the yard which was a fairly clean shot to the gully at the bottom of the hill where a large snow dune would stop us.  The only problem was a large oak tree looming ominously close to the perfectly straight line down which we would have to aim ourselves.

Predicting trouble, my dad climbed down the hill and pushed snow up against the base of the tree, creating a sloped bank that would push us away from the it.  At least that was its theoretical purpose.

“So who’s first?”  My dad asked when he had climbed back up to us.

“Me!  Me!”  I shouted, jumping in front of my sister.

I set down my saucer sled and jumped on.

The first ride is always the slowest, especially for saucer-sleds.  The snow compresses down after a few runs and a track of hard snow is created and the ride gets faster, so this first run wasn’t super exciting.  A little annoyed, I popped off of the sled at the bottom of the hill and climbed back up.

My mom went.  And then my sister.  It seemed like each run was going a little bit faster than the last.  Our snow-path was compacting nicely.

We cycled through the whole family a couple times before the hill started to get really fast.

My dad jumped on his sled and bulleted down the hill.  He hit the snow bank he had created to keep us away from the tree, but he was going too fast.  Instead of bouncing off of the bank, he barreled through it, directly into the tree.  His sled had spun around so he hit the tree sideways with his shoulder.  With a loud “SMACK,” he turned into a lifeless pile of flailing limbs.

We watched from the top of the hill as he coughed and gathered himself shakily to his feet.

“The first two thirds of that was actually pretty good.”  He wheezed. 

My mom looked at him worriedly.

“I’m fine,”  he reassured, “just aim around the tree.”

So my mom jumped on the sled and whizzed down the hill.  Right into the tree.

It looked as though her teeth absorbed most of the impact.  She lied motionless at the bottom of the hill.  This was going to be a dumb obituary.

Then, miraculously, she too coughed and stood.  There was no blood, no broken anything.  I still have no idea how she managed to not break her face into half.  Sometimes if it’s quiet I can still hear the sound of molars against wood.

She trudged up the hill dizzily toward us.  “Just…just aim around the tree.  You’ll be fine.”

So I took a running start down the hill.

My eyes teared up from the wind as it whipped violently past.  Though my vision was bleary, I could make out that I was headed directly for the tree.  I tried to steer around it, but saucer-sleds aren’t built with that feature. 

I hit the embankment that my father had constructed in front of the tree but I was going so fast that instead of going around it, I was launched over it like a jump.  I hung in the air, clutching the saucer in vain.  My short life played before my smeary eyes.

I smashed into the tree three feet above the ground with my upper body.  My lower body continued around the tree, turning me into a human helicopter blade as I remained airborne.  I landed several seconds later in the snow dune at the base of the hill.  The sled caught up with me and ran into my groin.

“Oh, my God!  Honey, are you okay?”  My mother rasped from the top of the hill.

“Yeah.”  I managed to squeak. 

I dragged myself onto all fours.  My wounded balls prevented me from standing the whole way up.  I left my sled and started to crawl up the hill.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”  My dad asked, nursing his shoulder.

“Oh, I’m fine.  That tree is really hard though.”  I had to take a short break because the waves of pain coming from all over my body were temporarily too much to handle.  I looked up at my sister who was staring at my parents and me with a mixture of horror and disdain.  “Grace, you’re next.  Just aim around the tree.”  I instructed her.

“Are you shitting me?”  She said flatly.  “I just watched all three of you hit the same tree.”  My parents and I all exchange glances.   “Darwin would be ashamed.”

We stood holding our injured parts as my sister loosened her scarf and about-faced toward the house.

--

I guarantee that this is a true story.

When I was Three, My Painted Toenails Almost Got My Family Excommunicated

I am the eldest child.  Therefore, there was a moment in my life when I was siblingless and had the undivided attention of my parents.  The three of us lived in harmony and unparalleled happiness.  I have no recollection of this, but I have a hypothesis that I simply blacked out from the sheer volume of joy.

I hit my renaissance early, unfortunately, because a year later, this golden era was cut short as my mother subletted her uterus to a new tenant.  Shortly thereafter, we incorporated my little sister into our happy little family. 

It didn’t take me long to realize that I wasn’t too keen on this “sister” thing.

Suddenly the attention I was getting had been cut clean in half.  Why were my parents hanging out with my sister?  Why was she so cool?  It couldn’t be the conversation.  She just gurgled like a gunshot victim and poked at my mother’s eyes and face.  If I was having a party, I wouldn’t invite her back, so what the hell did they see in her?

I decided to take a stand.  Seven days after my sister was born, I took a brown crayon and dragged it down the hallway, leaving a huge, crumbly streak the length of the wall.

This temporarily made me the center of attention again, but not necessarily in a positive way.

Attention was attention, though, and I wanted to get the majority of the market share.  To do this, I began thrusting myself into situations where my parents were with my sister and trying to steal the spotlight. 

One day I found my mom painting my sisters fingernails.  Guess who else suddenly wanted his nails painted too?

My mom was incredulous at first, but played along eventually.

"Sure, honey.  What color do you want?"

"Pink."

I chose pink because if my mom wanted a daughter so badly, she was going to get the most kickass daughter ever:  me.   I was going to get my nails painted and she was going to forget all about that stupid toddler cooing in the corner.

My mom made me promise that I would be careful so I didn't get any on the furniture or the rug.  She showed me how to splay my fingers to keep them from bumping in to each other or anything else.

I walked around with my fingers stretched out into stationary jazz hands for hours.  I didn't want to mess up my nails and jeopardize my progenal coup.

This continued for a while.

If my mom and sister were gone for a suspiciously long time, I would go hunting for them and if I found them painting their nails, I demanded to be a part of it.

I had my nails polished.  A lot. 

My mom was well aware of the social taboo of this, especially in the small town in North Carolina where I grew up.  If I ever had polish still on my nails before a school day, my mom would always make sure she used nail polish remover on them.  I didn't really care, but my mom knew that painted nails would attract bullies to me like lone men with mustaches to a child beauty pageant.

But, I didn’t like the smell of nail polish remover, so one day my mom proposed a compromise.  She suggested that we paint my toes instead of my fingers so that my shoes would cover the polish and I could go to school without having to get it cleaned off.

I was sold.  She painted my toes from then on.

Weeks went by, and the painting of my toenails continued.  I got to steal the spotlight from my sister and I didn’t have to suffer through the stench of acetone.  Everything was going according to plan.

Then, one day, the pastor of our church, Mr. Walters, came to our house to visit my sister to see how she was doing after her recent baptism.

Mr. Walters was a very nice man, but his principles mirrored those of our small town.  He was very…how to put this.  He was very white.

My parents were giving Mr. Walters a tour of the house, when I popped out of wherever I had been previously and pattered through the room. 

Mr. Walters greeted me.  "Hey, son.  How are y-"    

He stopped short as he noticed that my toenails were bedazzled with a fresh coat of lime-green paint.

“Are your toe nails painted?”  He asked me as he looked at my parents.

My mother threw my father a furtive glance.  I could see that she was nervous, but I wasn’t sure why.  I decided that I would clear up the situation.

“Yes, my mom painted my nails.  She paints them because I’m a better daughter than my sister.”

Mr. Walters brow furrowed. 

“Nail polish is only for girls, though.  You know that, don’t you?”

“Well.  I showed Bobby at school and he liked it.  I think he asked his mom to start painting his nails too.”

Mr. Walters’ jaw dropped.  He had found the gay patient zero of the church’s preschool class!  No wonder all the boys had started playing with dolls!  It was spreading!  The R-Naught must be astronomical!  (Tidbit:  I watched Contagion yesterday)

My mother whisked me away up to my room and left me there while she went downstairs to diffuse the temporarily speechless pastor’s growing urge to prescribe me a homosexorcism.

--

That was the last day I asked to get my nails painted.  My mom didn’t tell me I had to stop, but even at that young age, I could tell something was amiss.  It was clear that this man didn’t want me to paint my nails, but I had no idea why.  I just wanted to edge my sister out of the family equation, what was the big deal?

--

Disclaimer:  My position toward my sister has evolved since I was 3 years old and now I don't mind her as much.

The Day I Realized Everything Isn't Fair

One day, years ago, my family was visiting my grandfather in Pennsylvania.

I was at an age which put me directly in the middle of my Hundred Years War with Acne.  Not only was this fight excruciatingly long, but it was hard fought as well.  The frontlines stretched irritatingly far.  Active battlegrounds included not only the typical Chin, Nose, and Forehead, but also the meddlesome Shoulders and dreaded Back.

My body was a war-torn wasteland, made desolate by the bastard: Acne.

So, anyway, we're in Pennsylvania visiting my grandfather.  We were just sitting around as he regaled us with some wonderfully long-winded tale about how he bought a new calf from the local Amish auction. 

My attention span was reaching a breaking point and I was pretending the shag carpet that I was sitting on was a TaunTaun that I would soon cut open and crawl inside like Luke Skywalker.

My mother leered at me sideways as I make lightsaber noises at the carpet.

In my mind, I'd nearly crawled inside the beast when my parents and grandfather stood up and began to put on coats.

I looked up at them.  "Where are we going?"

"Grandpa wants to show us the Amish market where he bought his calf."

We piled into my grandfather's beat up Ford truck and rumbled down increasingly bumpy roads toward this fabled Amish village.

Up until this point I only vaguely knew what the word "Amish" meant.  I knew that Amish people lived without electricity or any modern conveniences, and I knew that for whatever reason, they did this on purpose.

I turned on my GameBoy.  This car ride was boring.

The next time I looked back up from my game was when we finally came to a stop in a gravel lot.

I looked up to see an old man with an enormous neck beard ride by in a carriage drawn by a mule.

"Here we are," said my grandfather.

I stepped out of the car.

I spotted a few more men standing about.  All in overalls and all sporting neckbeards with length correlated to age.

"So none of these people use electricity?"  I asked as my GameBoy played the theme song to "Pokemon" loudly.

"Nope," my grandfather informed, "they don't use anything modern.  No cars, no toasters, and they only use herbs and roots for medicine."

I followed my grandfather and parents over to a sagging shack in which two Amish girls were standing.  The only thing that was missing was a sign that said "Ye Olde Lemonade Stande."

As we got closer, I could see that, in fact, the girls were not peddling lemonade, but rather beans and corn and other farm crops heaped in wooden crates.

"Mom, do the kids choose to be Amish too?"

"No, honey.  They have to stay with their parents.  They can leave when they get older if they want to, though."

God, I thought.  What a bleak existence this must be.  What do they do all day?  Who would do this to their children?

"Hi girls," my grandfather said as he reached them.  "What's looking good today?"

They chatted about broccoli or something while I looked at the girls.  They both seemed about my age.  One of them was actually quite attractive, in an unadorned kind of way.  Her hair was covered in a bonnet and her skin was smooth and clear.

Then she looked at me.

She looked at the cratered surface of my face and sneered in disgust.  She literally recoiled.  I felt like Frankenstein's beast.

She continued to look at me, or rather at my face.  She touched her own face as she did this, as if thinking to herself, "I might be Amish, but thank God I don't look like that cretin."

Seriously? 

I eat three $5 dollar pills a day that a Dermatologist prescribed for me after my first prescription wasn't strong enough; I wash my face twice a day with a milky liquid that's full of tiny, razor sharp beads that shred my already delicate skin; and then before bed, I cake a thick gel onto my face that feels like fresh napalm and leaves a Phantom of the Opera mask on my pillowcase the next morning, but this girl who isn't even allowed to take medicine, HER FACE IS PERFECTLY CLEAR?  SHE SLEEPS ON HAY!  HOW COULD THIS BE?

Why had God smiled upon this girl but slapped me across the face with a zit hammer?

That's when I realized that life, truly, is not fair.

--

Then I turned up my GameBoy music and walked back to the air-conditioned car.  So who's really the winner in this scenario?

We'll call it a tie.

Holy Shit

I have just been witness to the loudest, nastiest sounding lady shit of all time.

Obviously I can't make this claim with absolute confidence, seeing as though it is impossible to compare my experience against every lady poop that ever was, but this was harrowing to an extent that I don't think I'll ever be able to wash the sound out of my head regardless of how much liquor I pour into it.

Dear.  God.

So let me paint a picture for you:

I'm sitting in a Starbucks on my computer seated at the last table available that is near an electrical outlet.  This table also happens to be next to the restrooms.

A husky woman shuffles rapidly past my table, bringing with her a small gust of wind akin to a subway car whooshing through a tunnel.

She barrels into the restroom and locks the door.

I'm still relatively unfazed at this point and I'm typing away happily when I hear the groaning porcelain sound of a toilet overburdened by obesity.

Poor guy.  I think to myself.  He shouldn't have to take that crap.

Before I can muster a narcissitic chortle at my own stupid joke, I hear what sounds like a high school chemistry teacher getting plopped into a baseball dunk tank.

I sit, my mouth agape with horror, as this stranger loses a dress size into the toilet only a dozen or so feet away.

After her first echoing salvo, I hear the woman quietly mutter, "Jesus Christ."

Jesus Christ is right, lady.

Are you trying to bring him back to judge the living and the dead by initiating judgement day?

Soon after the "Jesus Christ," the woman catches her second wind and fires off another round so hard it must, IT MUST, have cracked the toilet.

I almost puked in my mouth.

THEN SHE STARTS SINGING.

She starts singing "Whistle While You Work" from The Seven Dwarfs:  the most disgustingly applicable song imaginable for the FEMA-caliber effort that I'm sure was required to restore the restroom to operational status.

The worst was when she walks out of the restroom, dragging a trail of toilet paper from her right shoe.  As she walks by she makes eye contact with me and smiles.  And not even like a normal "Oh hello there, sir!  Jolly good weather we're having!" smile.  She gives me this coy half-grin which translates to, "You like listening to me poop, pretty boy?"

I want to die.

Sleepytime Regrets Ch. 2

Another regret!

Sleepytime Regrets Chapter 2:  I Can See For Miles and Miles

There's a bagel shop in my town called "Bodo's Bagels." 

Some local business owner somehow stumbled upon the recipe for the perfect bagel.  My guess is that he sold his firstborn or let Satan give him a wet willie or something.  It was totally worth it, though, because those bagels are delicious.

Some years ago, when I was toiling through middle school, it was a family custom to go to Bodo's after church.  It was everyone else's family custom to do this, too.

So, one Sunday, we rumbled our car into a makeshift parking space off in the grass near the completely full Bodo's lot.

Bodo's was always busy, but on Sunday it looked like Wall Street after a nearby cocaine store had a fire sale.

People were yelling out orders; customers were banging and bumping into each other.  Bodo's was a hivemind, with 200 different people with 200 different tasks, but somehow all achieving their goals and reaching their destinations.

My parents gripped my hands tightly, as to not lose me in this violent bustle of activity.  The hand holding was a little embarrassing, but I didn't want to get swept away, either. 

The line crept slowly forward as other customers permeated through it.  They were all hurrying to do various other things like collect napkins or go regurgitate so they would be hungry for more Bodo's.

Eventually it was our turn to place our orders.  My parents stood trying to decide what they wanted.  They probably could have multitasked during the 15 minutes of line-standing, but who am I to judge.

I stepped forward to place my order.  I already knew what I wanted since I always got the same thing every time.  I was going to get a plain bagel with butter.  Sure it might be boring, but it was yummy.

I stood in front of the cash register.  I wanted to order fast so I looked cool.  This was a fast-paced place and I wanted to show this girl that I was a cool, fast-paced dude.  I looked up at the girl who was to take my order.  She was looking off to the side, across the room.

I thought that maybe she hadn't seen me.  I stood on my tiptoes and wiggled my head a little bit to try to get her attention.

She still looked off to the side.

Was there a fight or something?  What was so engrossing? 

I followed her gaze and turned to the corner of the room to try to see what she was looking at. 

Nothing particularly interesting was going on back there.  I was confused.

I turned back to the lady.

Her right eye was still looking over my shoulder, but her left eye was looking directly at me. 

Oh, no...no, no, no.  She didn't...

Yes she did.  She had a lazy eye.  And not only did the poor girl have a lazy eye, but now she thought that I was being an asshole about it.

Before, I had only looked at her lazy eye and now I found myself smack-dab in the center of a painfully awkward situation.

She turned bright red.

I turned bright red.

Shit.

"Plain bagel with butter, please."  I muttered.

She punched at the keyboard and my parents walked up behind me to place their orders.

My parents took their sweet time ordering.  They might have ordered really fast, but it sure felt like an eternity.  I stared at the ground. 

My face burned so hot I thought it was going melt and drip onto my shoes.

I eventually got my bagel, and it was delicious, but I'm not convinced it was worth the sleepless nights.

--

Sure, it might not be the worst thing in the world, but God, I still feel awful about this one.  If you're out there Bodo's girl, I'm sorry I was a turd about your googly eye.