Funny Experience, Part Two
On Friday before the wedding, I had to head out to Adelphia Cable to pay my bill before they sent some mustachioed goon named Guido to break my legs and steal my internet connection. Adelphia is on the other side of town, which is only about 5 minutes on a normal day. On a day during the school year, it takes 40 minutes. My car air conditioner is on the blink, and it was hot as hell, so by the time I get there I am in a foul mood.
I then wait in line for 30 minutes to pay my bill (apparently all the deadbeats pay in person on Friday), and I am nearing a volatile explosion from impatience when a car pulls up and a woman comes rushing into the store.
The woman embodied every negative stereotype you have ever heard about West Virginians (as a West Virginian, I feel allowed to pick on us- if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at). She is short and fat, about 5 feet tall and nearly as wide. She is wearing lavender stretch pants, the kind you only see at wall mart, and she has a huge gut that isn’t quite where her stomache should be but still above where her nether regions should be. She is wearing what was once a white ‘Tweetie” bird t-shirt, but now it is a yellowy/dirty beige. She has thick glasses, the kind that make your eyes look 3 times the real size, and they have the ear pieces that extend from the bottom of the lense (the kind that went out of style 20 years ago).
And. She stinks. Really bad. She has that musty odor that is a combination of 1 part not bathing, 1 part dumpster grunge (you know what I mean- that juicy bile that stays in the dumpster after they dump it, where it just sits and ferments), and 1 part 40 packs of cigarettes without a change of clothing. Essentially, she smells like a popular nightclub bathroom floor on Sunday morning.
She charges to the front of the line, which startled me and infuriated me at the same time. She then looked at the lady behind the counter, and blurted out, “I got’s the diarrhea, I’m gonna dirty my pants.”
You could hear everyone in the room breathe in, and at the same time, everyone took a step away from where the woman was standing. Also note that there is NO public bathroom, and the only doors are to leave or to go into the employee area behind the counter. The lady behind the counter looked like she had been shot, and before she could respond, the woman this time yelled out:
“I GOT’S THE DIARRHEA, I’M GONNA DIRTY MY PANTS.”
At this point, I lost complete control. I laughed so hard I almost shot stuff out my nose, and I had tears streaming down my face. Not only did the woman look the way she did, had announced to everyone she had ‘the diarrhea’ (like there is just one case of diarrhea that gets passed along- like fruitcake at Christmas), but now she was standing here threatening this women with a bowel movement.
The lady behind the counter was far more composed than I was, and said politely “I am sorry ma’am, we do not have a public bathroom.”
The woman did not take this well, and then shouted, “I gots the diarrhea, you don’t want me to dirty my pants,” after which she proceeded to try to open the employee door.
At this point, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I just looked at the saleslady and asked if we were on Spy TV or some spin-off of Candid Camera. She glanced at me nervously, when the woman yelled out again about her condition. At that point, people were getting noticeably unravelled, and I just looked at the woman behind the counter and said, “For the love of God would you please let that woman into your bathroom.”
And they did, thank God.