Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Sitting on a Cornflake Waiting for the Van to Come...

Standing in line waiting for the airport shuttle, a man tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned around, he used a hand to indicate his face, and asked, “Do I look all right?”

I live for these moments. Wanting to give him an honest answer, I focused. He looked like a mild-mannered, kindly father. “Yes.”

When he pointed to his nose, I leaned closer, squinting. There was a pretty nasty slice across it that had been expertly covered with make-up. “Oh. It’s hardly noticeable.”

“Good. I have a really important presentation to make.”

“I don’t think anybody will notice.”

Of course now that he’d pointed it out, I was not entirely sure that was true. I was starting to think about the really good Bare Mineral’s Bisque I had in my carry-on bag. Would it be too strange for me to fix this guy’s make-up?

“So my son got a puppy. An 85-pound Bull Mastiff.”

I love my life. I love that I have a face that says, “Tell me more.”

“Oh?”

“And I put a dog biscuit in my mouth.” He reenacts this for me as he speaks. I’m beside myself with joy. “And then I did this.” The guy pats his chest.

I drop my bags on the floor when I bend over laughing. I love my life. The shuttle has arrived by the time I collect myself and my belongings, and am upright again. We’re walking to the shuttle and he looks faintly wounded by my reaction.

“So you have that kind of a sense of humor?”

Really? I wonder what kind of reaction he usually got with this story. I drag my bags onto the Knight Bus unabashed; he might as well know what happens when you talk to strangers, right?

“I’m a writer, and I’m going to use that story.”

“Well. Go right ahead. I give it to you.”

“You should use it too, when you give the presentation. Just in case they notice your nose. It’s pretty good.”

“I’m going to,” he assured me. “I have a picture of the puppy in my slides. I sell organic eggs, blue ones.”

Are you kidding me? He is the Egg Man, goo goo g’joob! I LOVE my life, and I’m starting to love airports.

6 comments:

  1. And I love your life too! Please share more. I want to know about the hike and all the great adventures you have.

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  2. Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe

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  3. LaDonna! You walked barefoot in Texas? Just read your bio. I got bit by fireants in the shower in TX. Though I did fish for crawdads using breadballs, and I spent months of a pregnancy drinking Seven Eleven slurpees and hanging out inside their cooler. I <3 Texas. Let's go back.

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  4. Thanks for making me smile today. I needed that. I especially love the line, "I love how I have a face that says tell me more!" I just have a voice that says tell me more and don't be mad if I miss half the story and cut you off to tell you that your story reminds me of a story. We're all a work in progress after all! :)

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  5. Steph, what a cool story. As you know, we writers have to talk to people to get the scoop. And like me, you ask yourself, "Is it too strange if I ...?" I'm always trying to fit in and not be too strange, but I still get looks like, "You're so strange!" Maybe that's a mark of success, not social failure?

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  6. I hear you Norma. As writers we never get the rule book and even if we did, you know we'd rewrite it.
    Consider this,
    1) Where's the fun in normal?
    2) Do you think anybody wanted to hang on the playground with Stephen King? (Besides Dean Koontz.)
    3) We all have our reasons for spending inordinate amounts of time with imaginary friends, where we get to make up all the rules.
    4) I'm quoting Ted Dekker here because you need to hear this. "You are a blue monkey in a brown monkey world."

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