Awkward, now in amazing earwig flavor!

It’s pretty uncharacteristic for me to skip breakfast at home, but it does happen. Like this morning. So by 8:45, I was really hungry. I headed on down to Safeway for their $.49 kaiser, onion, and cheese rolls. After putting a couple rolls in the bag, I headed to the checkout.

The checkout girl was dressed smartly, a bright, tight sweater. Don’t worry, this isn’t going where you think it is. Anyway, I notice that she’s got some small black feather under her left breast. I mean, I wasn’t looking or anything – but a black feather on a bright blue sweater? Yeah, it’s going to show up. Anyway, I didn’t want to be that pervert checking out the check out girl, so I killed my time in line reading the Nat Enq.

As I got a step closer, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the feather was kind of blowing a bit, moving from breast to breast. Always underneath. By now, I was fascinated by this thing. I mean, what kind of airflow makes it move side to side like that? So there I was, peering over the National Enquirer, and gawking at the checkout girl’s rack. Sheesh. As I got one more step closer, I realized it wasn’t a feather at all.

It was an earwig.

And nobody was saying anything. There was an earwig, circumnavigating the mammaries of a prominent, central figure to that checkout lane, and no one was saying anything. Finally, I had to speak up. As I pointed out the bug, it mercifully moved down, over, and toward her back. She didn’t see it, but turned around dutifully. I swept it off her back, and put it in the trash as the assembed check out line murmured to themselves “Yeah, I saw that, too,” “Earwigs are gross,” et al. “Thank you!” said the earnest checkout girl. I paid for my rolls, and left.

The rolls were delicious.

I don’t know how to say this but …

I’ve been on the receiving end of advice this week. And now I know that The Grass Is Brown Everywhere.

Elephant Memory

It’s not often I hear a story that I feel compelled to share, but this is pretty touching.

In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating
from college. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull
elephant standing with one leg raised in the air.

The elephant seemed distressed so Mbembe approached it very
carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant’s foot,
and found a large thorn deeply embedded in it.

As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the thorn out
with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down
its foot. The elephant turned to face the man and with a rather stern
look on its face, stared at him. For several tense moments Mbembe
stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually
the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away.

Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.
Twenty years later he was walking through a zoo with his teenaged son.
As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures
turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing.
The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe and lifted its front foot
off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times
then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn’t help wondering if
this was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed
over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right
up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. Suddenly the elephant
trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe’s legs and
swung him wildly back and forth along the railing, killing him.

Probably wasn’t the same elephant.