| Monday June 12, 2006 | ||
Nerf Darts and LED flashlights. |
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"He'd dip Nerf Darts into vinegar and shoot them in my eyes when I wasn't expecting it," she says then ordering another Mint Julep. "What's a Nerf Dart," I say. "Nerf," she says, "You know like the Nerf Football." "The foam football thingy?" I say. "Yep." I'm inside a bar near my home. It's thirty minutes 'till midnight and I've just ordered my third Budweiser. I'm talking to another recently divorced woman and I'm sitting on a stool at the bar (she's on my right). There's a big mirror in front of us and liquor bottles of all shapes and sizes have been placed on several thin glass shelves in front of it (the mirror). Even though we're sitting next to one another and could easily turn our head we look at each other using our reflections in the big mirror. If she was fifteen years younger maybe I'd be interested but she's about forty and like so many forty year old women in America she's f-cked around with her face and teeth and she looks scary (Her eyes are open way too wide, she's sporting porcelain veneers and her cheekbones peek at just below her lower eyelashes). She sips from her glass and then says: "Have you ever been hit in the eye with a Nerf Dart that's been dipped in balsamic vinegar?" For thirty seven minutes she's been talking to me about her relationship with her ex-husband and I'd like to simply stand and walk away but I've got her thinking I'm a solid, well adjusted college educated American male so I'm stuck. "Something like that is hard for me to understand," I say. Secretly and to myself I'm thinking: I'm lying. She's told me her ex-husband has shot her f-cking eyes out using Nerf Darts dipped in vinegar. I clearly understand that. I'll bet it hurt. One minute you're walking around the house that you're love built and maybe you're smiling or making a ham sandwich and the next minute there's a f-ckin' vinegar soaked Nerf Dart en route to your eye. Jesus that was genius. Her ex-husband didn't just want her to experience the pain from the unexpected impact of the dart but he also wanted her to feel the intense burn of the balsamic vinegar. God that was good. When I was a kid my neighbor regularly shot rubber bands into my eyes and sometimes I'd close my lids (right after impact) and when I closed them the rubber band would be hanging from my eye. I wonder if that happened when the soaked Nerf Dart hit her eye? One minute laughing or maybe on the telephone talking long distance and the next minute you've slammed your eyelid shut on a Nerf Dart (that's seemingly come out of nowhere) and the vinegar is cutting through your cosmetic foundation. I want to laugh aloud but instead I say: "I feel bad for you." She says: "Ever been strobed into unconsciousness with a super bright LED flashlight?" She thinks I'm a sucker for her sad stories and to hook me real good she adds in some tears. She says: "At a certain point I wouldn't have sex with him 'cause he repulsed me and when I said I wouldn't he'd push those blindingly bright LED flashlights into each of my eyes and set it on the strobe option and I'd pass out 'cause of the intensity and when I woke up several hours later he'd tell me that we did it and I was lousy."
After a moment or two of neither of us
talking I say: |
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