I just have to say right off the bat that it takes a lot to shock me anymore. And I mean A LOT. What with TV and the Internet these days, we have access to a lot of shocking stuff and at lightening speed. And this stuff just happens to become less and shocking the more we see it. We become desensitized in a lot of ways, know what I mean?
So you just have to bear this in mind when I tell you about the break that the Hubs and I were taking in the coffee shoppe at Barnes & Noble over the weekend. It started off simply enough...after doing some early Christmas shopping (yes, I am that girl, who does Christmas shopping in October) and feeling a bit parched, we decided to park our butts and have a beverage while we rested our weary bones for a bit.
So I'm sipping my IBC Cream Soda, which, btw, is some of the best cream soda I've ever tasted. And since I seldom drink pop (why waste perfectly good calories on pop when I could throw them away on pasta...or biscuits...or mashed potatoes--all of which I'd had just an hour earlier at Red Lobster...but I digress) I was just sort of savoring it as I did a little people-watching, natch.
As I was scanning the store, my eyes landed on a person sitting on the opposite side of the coffee shoppe's glass-partition wall. I could only see the back of the person's head (a rather greasy-haired looking head, as I recall), and it seemed to be a man from that vantage point. I noticed he had a book in his hand and was kind of flipping the pages. No big deal. Perhaps he was waiting for someone?
But as my eyes bounced around they kept landing on the greasy-haired man, and as I let my eyes watch him for a longer period, I soon became perplexed. Then befuddled. Then, wait for it...SHOCKED. Yes, shocked. And then seriously, the ick factor actually began to set in. And why, you ask (and I don't blame you since I'm kind of dragging it out for you)? What could possibly have shocked me into the ick factor at Barnes & Noble?
It was because the greasy-haired man was not just mindlessly flipping the pages of a book. No. No. And NO! He was flipping the pages of the book...repeatedly...very close to his face...so he could smell the book. He was visibly and quite deliberately smelling the book, people...and pausing only occasionally to also...sniff...his...fingers.
WTH?! And in this case, I think a WTF is also in order!
Why? I mean, seriously, WHY? Is there something about books I don't know? Or does this dude have a fetish I've just never heard of until now (and dammit I wish I'd been left in the dark about!). Granted, there are worse things the guy could have been sniffing, but still. It's. Just. Icky.
So of course I had to whisper to the Hubs what I had witnessed so that he could gawk and stare like an idiot take a casual glance just as I had. And yeah, we sort of laughed it off, but we were both rather taken aback by the whole scene. So of course we made sure to walk past this man on the way out of the coffee shoppe.
While I personally was too far into the ick factor to let my eyes linger too long as we passed, I looked just long enough to realize that maybe the greasy-haired man was actually a greasy-haired woman. He/She appeared to have boobs, but hey, they could have been man-boobs for all I know. The hair was short, but the clothing was ambiguous. And I sure wasn't gonna turn back for another look once we'd gotten clear of him/her. I asked the Hubs what he thought, and he couldn't decide if it was a man or a woman either.
But one thing is certain, and I shit you not, people: I was sitting less than 6 feet away from the greasy-haired, androgynous Barnes & Noble Book Smeller!
And how was your weekend?
