Have you ever had a day where you almost feel like you have a "Hit me!" sign on your car? People just swerving and nearly hitting you all day? Well, imagine that, but instead of cars, its completely batshit insane people that keep crossing your path.
Wednesday afternoon, I wake up around 1 o' clock and begin my weary attempt to prepare for my 2 o' clock class. Eventually, I leave the house, and realize I have to get gas, and suddenly wish I had been a bit more timely in tearing myself away from my fantastically comfortable jersey sheets. So, I run to the nearby 7-11, and come whipping into pump 6 and get to pumping my gas. On the other side of the pump theres a green wagon with a cute little dog in the back, and as I urge the pump to hurry the FUCK UP. Because of course, I have to get the one completely useless pump at the station. Thats my payback for being an awful person.
So, as I creep closer to my 15 dollar limit I put on gas spending that day for no good reason. I feel like if I dont fill up, Im less likely to go on some absurd round-town drive. Anyway... Then all of a sudden I hear a drawling voice come from behind me:
"You know about that pickle park?!"
Instantly chuckling akwardly, I say "No, sir. Dont know anything about that..."
"You know! The Pickle Park!!!!"
"Oh, right..."
"Where the limp wrists hang out! You know about those limp wrists?!"
Realizing what the hell this man is talking about, I cant help but start laughing, so I struggle to stifle it.
"OH, pickle... got it. "
The man keeps blabbering on about how up 4th Street theres a long stretch of Mangroves where said "limpwrists" hang out and do whatever.
"If you ever see a bunch of guys comin out of the trees that dont look like beach combers, you know what theyre really doin' back there!"
"Right? Valid point." I say, trying clumsily to get the pump back in the holster and avoid this casual absurdity turning into a full blown schizophrenic dissertation.
How I constantly run into these people, I will never know. But it seems like they see me and think "HE LOOKS LIKE HE NEEDS SOME BALLS OUT CRAZY IN HIS LIFE!"
Is it just me or is an encounter with an insane person a rather profound moment? Case in point:
I walk into Starbucks on my way to campus Monday, rationalizing the calories as a "reward" and a "comfort day" since... after all - Ive been so good lately. I order my classic, Solo Grande Mocha Frappucino, or as the greeks called it - ambrose. (right?? yea?) I stand by the bar and start to discreetly check people out here and there. The typical starbucks affair really, a glance here, a dart there, and before you know it I'm recognizing characters. The grad student with his mac book and his slim, sleek frame glare-resistant (pompous, AHEM. what? sorry.) glasses. And I'm pretty certain if my eyes aren't failing me, that's a tiny moose on his hoodie. Theres the arm-chair intellectual with this HARDLY crinkled copy of -insert pseudo-intellectual author title here-. There's of course the friends who meet for posterity sake, but really they just think that the other person was sincere when they gave the obligatory "we should hang out!!!" because theyre too dense to admit that theyre changed people and probably wouldn't like each other now. So, they figure a neutral social environment, and because they haven't cleaned in weeks, would be best, and why not treat yourselves to the chocolatey rich smokey tones of an espresso laced soy-grande-two pump-double dipped-handwoven-indigenous-art-whatever-the-fuck while you pretend to give one shit about whatever this painfully familiar and transparent piece of garbage is spewing at you from over their steaming god-knows-what.
anyway, to the point. SO. This woman comes up to me and I crane my eyes in their sockets to look at her through my flaking Dior frames, and she seems like any over-the-hill and run of the mill woman. Wind breaker because God FORBID it drops below a balmy 90,000 degrees. She stands a little close to me, but I don't mind, its an old lady, I'm sure shes not trying to grope my package or anything. Then again, Its been a while, and I might not stop her if she did. ANYWAY. So - I'm standing there, and the baristas eyes make a quick jolt past her, and they stiffen up in that "fuck. I hate this bitch" service-industry way. He glances up "what can I getcha honey?" "oh! soy please, just a bit of soy, you know I wanna......" And she trails off into this... hold on... a slight, breathy, bass vibration. And then a it hits me, shes muttering something to herself. And I give her the obligatory whispered-to-my-self joke second or two, SHE KEEPS MUMBLING. So, clearly I'm loling on the inside because this woman has at least muttered 3 full sentences by now. After a tense moment that could only be expressed in a /b/ like photo edit, the barista lunges into a fridge, sloshes a shot of soy milk into a sample cup, and places the cup on the bar in a deliberate swiftness, all the while this woman is still mumbling and grumbling nearly inaudibly. I hear slight quips of 's' sounds and few of the more hard consonants. And the woman spots the cup, and as she reaches it - I see her hand is shaking with the tenacity of a category 10 fucking earthquake. And without hesitation grabs the cup, which then immediately begins sloshing like a toddlers bathtub, and she slams the soy into her mug, maybe in hopes speed would ensure accuracy. And like clockwork, as the soy came dribbling heavily down the side of the mug, the barista comes flying in with a rag and wipes up the spill, and the woman looks back at them and asks "hey, can you do me a favor, can you watch and see what that girl says when I leave? I ..... shes ..... mutter mutter mutter." The barista walked away immediately and said a very affirmative "yes, sure - Ill let you know." Since I know the barista well enough I look at the woman and I say "Absolutely babe, no problem." And she turns to me with this shocked, "wtf did you just say" face on, and start hooting at me about "I wasn't talking to you - you should learn to shut your ears (X2), or Gods gonna shut em for you! Hell shut you up!" (I'm assuming she meant God.) And I just started cracking up with a stifled throaty breaking laugh. Her friend came up and took her away saying "lets go outside for a bit hun, lets go."
Everyone around me loled and muttered "what the hell was that." "What a troublemaker." And for whatever reason, after the initial shock, I got to thinking about this encounter with a crazy bitch. And for some reason I got all into the scientific brian-isms of the situation like my words or phrasing sparked a recognition synapse in her brain but it misfired, and connected to some ridiculous fuck-up and her mood went from normal to BALLS TO THE WALL INSANE within milliseconds. I wonder if she finds herself lost in her own head. Do you think someday all your self-exploration and self-awareness will deteriorate because you lost your map to yourself? It reminds me of this story of a woman at CVS I met way back in the day. I dunno how much I can I met her, but I call her the woman with empty eyes. She was like, completely Alzheimer. like - acted like, and had to be handled like a child. Maybe of 8 or so, but she looked at me and when her husband asked her "you had a bag of candy at the house remember? We bought it yesterday?" yadda yadda, she was like - vacant. Had NO recollection. It was really sad. I dunno, I just dont wanna get lost in my own head, its hard enough already to read the fucking map.
When will the crazy cease?
