Just A Little Free Time

I had a little free time yesterday, so I headed on down to the Walgreens Pharmacy to sit in the massage chair.

Sure it’s crusty and it smells like moldy people, but it touches me in a way that makes me feel loved.  Unconditionally.

I like to really get settled in, peer out from under half-closed eyelids, let just the tiniest bit of drool escape the corner of my mouth, and stare at the cute male pharmacist behind the counter.

After about half an hour, I start adding in random twitches whenever he glances over, and my happiness is pretty much complete right around the time his lower lip starts to tremble.

It’s a peak experience.

This time however, my session was interrupted by a pregnant woman who sat down to wait for her prescription and immediately began talking at me.

It quickly became clear she ought to be there to re-up her OCD medication, as she used her hand sanitizer no less than 17 times, reorganized the contents of her purse, and wiped out her left shoe, all while keeping up a running commentary which included asking me if I owned a car and whether or not I had remembered to turn it off.

When I realized that only answering in grunts, low moans and making no eye contact what-so-ever, wasn’t going to deter her, I turned toward her to try my next tactic — the unnerving, hungry stare, paired with a statement of the obvious.

I started saying “So… you’re in Walgreens now,” in a suitably creepy and intense manner.

But she interrupted me before I could finish, to say “Yes, I have a glass eye.”

I immediately denied any knowledge of it, and claimed to not have noticed.

It actually was a pretty good glass eye, so one wouldn’t notice in passing and would only discover it upon looking directly at her, such as during forced conversation.

She went on to explain to me she had it because when she was born, something about her eye, I don’t know I was too busy staring at it to hear what she was saying.

Also, an epic battle was raging inside me.  It went like this.

“Go ahead.  Just do it.  Ask her to take it out.”

“NO. That’s wrong Jonni. You’re not cool.”

“But I really want to.”

“Forget it.”

“But I’ve always wanted to see someone pluck their own eye out. And it might make that popping sound like a cork coming out of a bottle.”

“NO.  This kind of behavior is not okay.  You’re sick.  Knock it off.”

“But maybe, if I ask her and she takes it out, maybe she’ll pop it into her mouth to lube it up right before she sticks it back in her head.”

“You think she’d do that?!”

“Maybe.”

“Neato.”

I cut her off in mid sentence — “Take it out.”

“What?!” she responded.

“Can you, is it, I mean, how often do you take your eye out?” I stumbled over the words, unable to do anything but plunge full speed ahead. “Does it hurt to take it out or put it in?”

“No, not at all.” She answered matter -of-factly.

I opened my mouth to say “Then do it.”

But right then the pharmacist called her name and she grabbed her things saying “Ah, my prescription’s ready.  See you later.”

I wanted to reach out grab her sleeve and say “Wait!”  I wanted to see her take out her eye, I wanted to roll it around in my hands.  I wanted to see her wet it in her mouth before she popped it back into her socket.  But mostly I wanted her to put it back in wrong, so I could lean over, put my hand to my mouth, and whisper loudly to her:

“Um… Your pupil’s not showing.”