I am staring at her mouth wondering if her jaw is held together with some space age polymer used by NASA. Her pie hole is a blur. Open. Shut. Open. Her lips are flapping like an oscillating fan spinning at a hundred miles an hour.
The music in the restaurant is loud and it is a strain to hear her words. Her teeth are bouncing up and down like a Kangaroo on speed. Her chin is vibrating like a shock absorber on an Indy Car.
Her whole face is moving, contorting. She tells a story like she is being chased by the four horsemen.
I nod at appropriate times. I listen to bits and fragments of a story about someone doing something to someone. I’m as vested in this conversation as Columbus’ crew was to sailing to the New World over the edge of the Earth.
Blah Blah Blah. She sounds like a dishwasher droning on.
Her story is so inside baseball, so uninteresting, plucking dandelions out of the grass with Tweezers would be more engaging.
Her conversation is going nowhere like a NASCAR race with one car constantly circling left.
Her words are like barbed wire being dragged across my ear canal.
I take a sip of water to stay engaged. My eyes watch her lips like a man watches a gold watch to be hypnotized. I feel a heavy sleep jumping on my eye lids pushing them down, making me want to yawn, possibly even vomit.
My eyes quietly probe a nearby TV monitor showing an ESPN highlight of the WNBA. Normally this would be as interesting to me as sunlight to a vampire. But at this moment it is a visual oasis in the middle of an Arizona dust storm.
Her words fill the space around me. it sounds like the trumpet teacher on the Peanuts. Waaa Waaa Waaa.
A player makes a two hand set shot ala 1965. It’s the most interesting shot I have ever seen. I want to cheer out loud and say did you see that, but I know this will be rude.
I look back at the mouth. It is smoking, presumably from the friction caused by air molecules crashing into one another at a thousand miles an hour.
Would it be rude to push away from the table and topple over backward and fake a heart attack.
I imagine flopping on the floor like a carp struggling for air on the deck of a fishing boat. I could undulate and stroke out and then clutch my chest.
Someone would call 911 and the paramedics would come and wheel me out of the establishment on a gurney.
Once outside, I could pop up and toss the medics a 10 spot and say thanks boys. That was excruciating.
I could then saunter into a neighboring cantina and fix my ills with a cold one.
I wonder if her gums would ever stop flapping? Would they still be set to semi automatic furry?
I have never seen a mouth that shoots out words like a machine gun spits out bullets. It should be registered with the FBI as a lethal weapon.
This interaction feels toxic.
The waitress eye balls me.
I raise a finger signaling for the bill.
The teeth are still chattering and the lips flailing.
I smile inside knowing that in a moment, I will pay the tab. I will thank her and exit this oratory hell.
I have never been so ready to tab out.
Life’s crazy.™