Sunday, October 22, 2006

Retelling Online By Request


So, this little nugget of absurdity goes back to when I first knew O (as in Pant's lesser half). At the time, say early to mid 90's, he had the bookstore on the same block where I had a new and used computer store. Given the nature of our businesses, neither of us could say "no soliciting" and the result was that all sorts of people would come in and offer to sell us all sorts of things. Sometimes they were worthwhile, but most of the time it was surreal or frivolous.
The computer joint was a long narrow hallway of a place with computers lining each side of the path from the front door to the counter in the back. From the door to the counter was probably 50 feet. Behind the counter I sat filling time. Then it happened: the door flew open with excessive force and the door jamb was filled with a strangely human shaped mass. With the first damp and gurgly sounding "step" the creature advanced into the fluorescent light and I began to feel the shock of confusion and fear. Advancing toward me was a six foot tall water buffalo of a woman whose gait was apparently well lubricated judging from the sounds emitted. In concert with this was a grunting kind of wheeze that was also rhythmically in lock step. She was doughy and big, with a lumpy quality that seemed to affect her face and fingers. One or two curlers remained in her violent hair and her expression was angry. With every weeble-wobbling step she splortched ever closer- the pattern of her house dress or mumu became more discernible with each wheezing grunt. Although time seemed to be slower than real time, she finally made it to the counter where I sat, frozen in awe. In her lumpy hand was a clipboard which she whacked down on the counter between us. On the clipboard was a form with pictures of candy bars- the kind that you find with schoolkids that are fundraising for their school/band camp/whatever. Then she spoke to me.

"BUY SOME CANDY, JERK!"

I couldn't help it. I said no while laughing. She turned on her heel (hoof?) and made for the door. Her stride was more rapid and louder, with the splortching sound higher in pitch. This time however, she was swearing like a sailor with Tourette's about me the whole way. You'll have to imagine something like this: "Fucking (spotch) *wheeze* Bastard (scunch) Son of a *wheeze* Filthy (splortch) Cocksuck *wheeze* (squich) Shitsack *gurgle* Douchebag *wheeze*" and then the door exploded the other way and she turned the corner and was gone.

All of this happened within about two minutes. It felt like an hour and shook my sense of reality. There was another fellow there in the computer store with me who witnessed this and was similarly speechless (assuming laughter isn't speech). For whatever reason, she never visited O's place. Lucky bastard. Thus, a new phrase in our neighborhood parlance and ineffective marketing method were swiftly invented.

10 Comments:

Blogger Schmoopie said...

LOL Oh...My...God!!!

12:51 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I bet she was her own best customer.
Yeast infections with a cottage cheese like discharge do tend to make make that splotching noise.

BTW I responded to your post.

5:27 PM  
Blogger Cheesy said...

Damn... you're making fun of me?? I was only trying to feed my 5 kids... geez!

5:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Beautiful!
Well sort of...Er, not really, no actually not at all. Well, the retelling of it, yes.

Nevermind, I laughed out loud, again, a lot.
Jerk.
OSF

PS - Glad that we decided on the word splortched in the last conversation.

8:53 PM  
Blogger slaghammer said...

Man, that is one fine looking side of beef!

12:16 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hammer I will never look at cottage cheese in the same light again *swaying with a green hue*

Stucco would that incident not have encouraged you to keep a baseball bat behind the counter or a stun gun???

2:47 AM  
Blogger Jill said...

That's quite the sales pitch. I wonder if it worked on anyone? Probably frightened a few people into buying something....

1:13 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I so remember that store and miss it so... just kidding.

This was one of the many moments I wish I was there. I will however always remember the black tape the the glasses, Long live Antoine!!!

5:49 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

GAAAA!!!! My eyes! My eyes!

Warn a girl, wouldja?

And when O and I were searching for a home and saw a place we liked that wasn't on the market, we'd shout, "Sell us your house, jerk!"

7:16 PM  
Blogger Scott from Oregon said...

I had the scam down. Most of those candies or raffle tickets also offered a dollar off of something. A dollar off of a large pizza, etc... The trick was to stand in front of the establishment offering a dollar off coupon and sell your one dollar item, be it candy or raffle ticket...

I always won the reward for most sold. Once, the manager of Johhny and Reds Pizza came out and told me I was missing the point of his dollar off offer... And then he said "Scram!"

9:55 PM  

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