When An Old Crone With Too Much Makeup Has A Joke To Tell
Today, me and Lucy were walking through the grocery store, minding our own business, completely unaware that our psyches dangled on the verge of being scarred, when an old woman hobbled toward us. She was absolutely terrifying. I wish I had a picture so that the blogging community could band together and help me bear the weight of this vision. I need you blogging community. I need your enthusiastic support and knee-jerk adoption of my tragedy as if it were your own.
She was old, yes, and old people are inherently scary because they are signposts of Death, but there's more. Her face was a fucking macabre cake of makeup. Her cheeks were excessively red and she wore BRIGHT BLUE eye-shadow that covered her eyelids all the way up to her blacked in brows. So there was this huge clash between her oldness and a flailing display of beauty supplies that made you sick to your stomach. And yet I couldn't look away. She was the decrepit love-child of a clown and a whore. She was so fucked up, she made you kind of want to kill yourself.
And then she stopped. She grabbed my arm. I know I make shit up all the time but this is totally true. This it not something to joke around about. It's nightmare fodder.
Lucy squeezed my hand and I flashed through my options. Should I knock this hag out? Should I yell for help? Should I scream "UNLEASH ME AT ONCE, FREAKSHOW"? But, no, none of that. I was paralyzed. I was frozen with intrigue and terror.
"Do you know the cheapest place to buy 4 suits?" she asked me. I had no idea. I don't even wear suits. Suits are for squares. But why would she stop to ask me such an absurd question? I don't bother anyone. I just stopped to buy some falafel. But then this woman asked me about suits and the question seemed to branch out and embrace more and more questions until they knocked on the door of philosophical impenetrability: Why is there something instead of nothing? "I don't know." I replied. She grinned and, again, I thought about punching her in the face. "A deck of cards."
And then she fucking cackled. A blood curdling cackle that got louder and echoey until you knew Dylan, later Hendrix, was right. Life is but a joke.
I wrenched my arm free and walked away from the cackling woman. Lucy said "That lady was crazy, Daddy. That was way too much eye-shadow" and Jenna asked me later why I'm such a magnet for weird shit. I don't know. I just wanted some falafel. But apparently the price for such a desire is a bad joke from an insane old woman who I'll be unable to forget as long as I live. Life is weird, internet. There's no explaining it. And not everything happens for a Reason.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Reader Comments (25)
Your dreams should be interesting tonight.
Did you say "Hi, Mom" from me? I haven' seen her in a while I wondered where she went to peddle her bad jokes. She and I don't get along too well, but dayumn I love me some blue eye shadow!
Using my Holmesian skills, I surmise that she a) had a bad experience in the past with 7 years of bad luck from breaking a mirror and therefore will no longer have a mirror in her home (or cell, whatever); b) lives alone and has no one who loves her, because really, what loved one would let a loved one go out in public wearing BRIGHT BLUE eyeshadow?; c) has visual hallucinations and thought you were perhaps Jesus, therefore deigned to approach you and touch the hem of your garment; and lastly d) is a polar opposite of you and your weird shit, and therefore was attracted to you. Maybe in a sexual way. Sweet dreams!
Yesterday, while standing in line at the grocery store, I felt a whisper-soft touch on my back...just where my hair meets my jacket. As if that wasn't nightmarish enough, I turned around to find a stinky, toothless old man holding 3 packages of Depends.
"Busy in here, isn't it?"...his words were meant as a caress, and my fight or flight instinct almost kicked in.
I say almost because I really needed the baby formula I was hefting, and I thought that running away from or decking the walking corpse behind me would be counter-productive to the goal at hand.
I feel ya, man.
I hear you & feel your pain.. I too am a magnet for "weird shit". Lemme tell you about the stranger that peed on my couch.....
I can't wait until I become that woman...
I was so busy trying to figure out why you'd written the number four instead of the word "for" that I didn't get the joke until you told me it was a joke and that I was "oh, yeah," because I'm so bad with jokes, especially bad jokes.
But "all along the watchtower, princes kept the view, While all the women came and went..."
That wasn't even a remotely interesting blog post.
that first paragraph was golden
Gribblemunch. That was a concise piece of criticism, but not very helpful. Perhaps you could point me to blog posts that are a lot more remotely interesting. I could study them and hone my craft. Like, maybe interesting blog posts that you've written.
anyone with the name gribblemunch should not be taken seriously. i mean, im still laughing at That alone.
and i found it interesting since this shit happens to me ALL the TIME. My lovely spouse has said the same thing to me that Jenna said to you on multiple occassions. The woman on the bus who interrupts my newspaper reading/avoidance strategy to formally introduce herself and tell me her life story; the other woman with who(whom? wtf?) i discussed death and grief as she rode to hand delivery the 1st memorial notice of her mothers passing to the newspaper; the countless homeless people who have approach me to discuss life or choose to defecate near me in open public places. Not so awesome. No it doesnt shock me so much, and i kinda look forward to the crazies who I attract. Except when they try to hug. or defecate. i forgot about that guy for a sec.
write it out virtual brother. i love it.
so what does this mean you'll be like as an old man!?
People often randomly begin talking to me too. I've decided it's because I have an approachable face and because they're lonely. It doesn't cost me anything to listen to them if I'm waiting for the same bus, and I hear some interesting stories. Hopefully, they leave the encounter with a little comfort from the human interaction.
Poor crazy old lady. I just know that's going to be me some day.
wow, that just happened to me also!
You should've knocked her old ass out. That shit is terrifying.
Also, leel - 'whom'.
Yummmmmm, falfafel!
I once had an old homeless guy accost me and tell me he could see the devil in me. All those same options flashed through my head -- scream? punch? run? It freaked my shit out for days.
Maybe that was her way of looking for a full deck.
I don't think you've used up your allocation of metaphors (symbols, similes, whatever) for the day.
Are you sure that was eyeshadow and not some kind of view of the stars leaking through her head?
I love being accosted by freaky old people! And I loved the clown/whore lovechild description--beautiful!
hm. whatever. everything does happen for a reason...the crone sensed your kindness and receptivity on some level, and your humor. She's old, but it isn't her fault. She wears too much makeup in inappropriate shades, but so do a lot of people, young and old. Was she all by herself? I imagine it's lonely and scary to be old in the world on your own, I imagine. She probably just thought she had half a chance of you being friendly to her and giving her joke a pity-chuckle.
In 1932, people probably laughed themselves silly over the deck-of-cards joke...more people were suit-wearers then, I guess. Big deal...a stranger approached you. If she was beautiful and vivacious, with no makeup, you wouldn't have anything to write about...
* ; )
Not everything happens for a reason.....AMEN! Except that in this case the reason was so that you would have a funny story to post on your blog.
You're seeing the future. That's going to be me and my sister.
I can't believe you wrote a post about my mom like that, you son of a bitch.
HA HA SNORT HA HA