Troll

He'd always gotten on my nerves a little bit. He would flirt, but I'd never been interested in him. He was far too old for me, far too loud, and somewhat vulgar.  I put up with him only because he was a part of the weekly noise. He'd pass through on Saturdays, fill the tortillas, yuk it up with the guys, and then leave as quickly as he came.

He'd tried to give me a friendly hug before the holidays. He reached for me with a big smile on his face, as if I should be so tickled for the attention. I stepped away and half-laughed, "Have you met me? I do not HUG!" That was only sort of funny, because I had known the man for maybe fifteen or sixteen years. I had never given him any indication that he should ever need to hug me.

Everybody was looking, and he's Mr. Funny, so he laughed it off as a joke, and I honestly thought that was the end of it. I had seen the little glimmer of disappointment in his eyes, but I never thought he'd come back a week later and try it again.

Here's the thing: if a girl uses the F-word and tells you plainly to keep your EFFing hands off her, you should probably start taking her seriously right away. You probably shouldn't keep trying, hoping that she'll change her mind mid-sentence. You should definitely not come back for more when she's got her back turned to you. It is not funny or cute or even within acceptable social parameters to force a full body hug on a girl who has just told you a few minutes ago to fuck off and die.

The way I see it, he's lucky he's still got his teeth.

100 Words: Hunger

When Netherton reads to the class, he uses a melodic voice with just a little bit of a hum to it. I read silently  along,  but about halfway through, my mind succumbs to his lullaby and the words on the page swirl together into a chaotic whirlpool of letters and punctuation.

Class begins at seven pm, just fifteen minutes after US History ends. Supper is an unrealistic fantasy on school nights.

That is why you will often find me with my face pressed to the glass of the vending machine, begging a Snickers bar to magically leap into my clutches.

Good News

You may be relieved (or possibly amused) to know that I took a quiz, and it turns out that I am not actually a misanthrope. I'm simply anti-social.

Stop laughing. It's true.

I don't hate the planet or every person on it. I am open to the idea of making new friends. I give anonymously, and there is no need to glorify me. (Sometimes people just need a helping hand. It's cool.) I understand the concept of "spreading positivity", and I am fine with it! I even like it when random people smile at me for no reason. I'm not suspicious of them when they do.

Of course if one of my bosses is smiling at me, then I might be suspicious. I might pretend I didn't see him at all, no matter how hard he tries to make eye contact. I'm sure to look just beyond him, at something behind him, or perhaps right over his head. After all, when it's a boss that wants to spread positivity my direction, you can bet your ass there's somethin' up with that.

Same thing goes for the children. You can't trust the little monsters. They always want something.

Dream: Disappointments

We'd been searching through the piles of corn for a while, the older lady and I. The children who'd gathered in the warehouse with us were complaining of hunger. The corn, of course, had begun to rot long ago, but we held out hope for a few good cobs to make some kind of meal for the little ones. Their cries were nearly unbearable. They were drowned out only by the whistling missiles that flew overhead. Our eyes were drawn upward to the windows with every bright explosion.

To keep the children busy, we tasked them with husking the cobs. They worked diligently, but I shooed them away when the older lady began to smack them for eating the rotted pieces. I know she was only trying to keep them healthy, but she was so damned cruel about it. She didn't have to call them names. They were just hungry. They didn't know any better.

I turned back to her just in time to see the tiny black spiders explode from just beneath her corn's husk. She crumpled her face and dropped it back into the pile. I reached for it, thinking I could seal it up somehow to prevent the spiders from biting us. Who knew if they were poisonous or not? When my fingers touched the silky strands just under the yellowed husks, the entire cob disintegrated. Thousands of tiny black spiders jumped toward me, opening their hungry mouths before landing on my face and my chest.

I jumped backward, into wakefulness and began to wipe the frightening things away. A few seconds went by before I understood that it had only been a dream, but that didn't keep me from turning toward my lover to smack the spiders away from him.

A few moments went by before I realized that he had only been a dream too.
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Snippets of This Week

Customer at the seafood counter (to Pam the Seafood Queen): "Are you being nice today?"

Pam, insistently: "Me? I'm always nice."

Customer, with a wink and a sly grin: "Well, if you ever want to be naughty, you just let me know."


(You go, girl.)



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Me to Brenda, my advisor at AC: "I'm bored. I think I could handle one or two more classes next semester."

Brenda: "Bored? Hmmm. Well, we can't have that. Let's get you just as stressed out as the rest of us around here." (Hands me a list of FIVE recommended classes! gulp)



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Melina, after I tell her my opinion about the nationwide epidemic of women exploring promiscuity and throwing all inhibitions to the wind: "Oh yeah, I agree with ....whatever the fuck you just said."



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Bad Joke of the Week (told by a man):

What do you tell a woman with two black eyes?

Nothin' you ain't already told her twice.