Nappy Boogers

Overnight the temperature dropped from a crisp 70 to a bitchy 40 degrees and I was hung-over and not pleased that I didn’t wear a jacket. I wasn’t in the best of moods. Eight o’clock in the morning I rushed to keep my head together and eyes awake. I took a sleeping pill that night to sleep but that morning I felt more like a placid blow up doll, enough to get a desperate bastard off-- but the body knows the plastic pussy wasn’t real. Sleep is supposed to be resetting not cheated. I couldn’t awake. I was still horny.

Arms folded and the requisite Dark sunshades on, I stood in line at the Starbucks with my eyes closed letting the line push me forward. It was my turn. I didn’t remove my sunshades. The cashier smiled at me. It made me feel uneasy. I never really liked strangers smiling at me. I ordered my coffee. I handed her my debit card. She took it seductively. I felt the pull of interest as she swiped my card. Was she flirting or was I still sleep.
The thing about flirting with me is that I am awkward. I find flirting invading my personal space or silly like office banter. I mean, is the morning ever good?
Back to my dick rising, she placed the card in the palm of my hand. Most clerks put some distance between the exchanges of transactions. Some clerks throw the card back at you. Some clerk hand it over like a dirty diaper, only with the tips of their fingers. But she placed it in my palm. I couldn’t understand her problem. She was an okay girl, but it was eight in the morning and I hated the world. Was she flirting? I suddenly got nervous. I have never been a flirt. I am more confrontational. I am more direct. I start thinking of off the wall stuff. I mean, doesn’t flirting lead to sex. It does in the movies.

I can also never tell if someone likes me. I always found it somewhat of an impossibility. It wasn’t that I was ugly, I just never considered myself on the radar. I felt as if each and every time I even considered my attractiveness I had to pause and wait for the joke. Like that time I got on the city bus and noticed everyone was staring at me. The two old ladies in the front seat were just smiling. It wasn’t until the bus driver asked me curiously, “Are you going to put that away.” I didn’t know what he meant. He then you said, “Your dick is out.” I looked down at my pants. I noticed my pants unzipped and somehow my dick managed to slither through the slit of my boxers. And there it was, naked without a care in the world. I guess it felt like flirting. I couldn’t get off that bus fast enough before I was arrested. That was me.

I touched my zipper to make sure it was intact. Those zippers are sneaky. I was now awake at Starbucks. Somebody appeared to like me and I questioned if I should flirt back. I wondered where it would lead. I didn’t have much time. The morning coffee rush was brutal. Am I supposed to tell her my name? Am I supposed to say something trite like “Would you like to meet for coffee” to the girl who works in a coffee shop. I wanted to know her criminal history. I wanted to know if her grandmother had diabetes. I wanted to know her credit score. But I kept silent, best, the second I opened my mouth it was over.

And then it happened. The joke. I heard “nappy boogers.” Somebody was calling me “nappy boogers.” I felt my anus contract. I turned around and it was some woman cutting the line rushing towards me. She looked familiar. My third grade teacher would call me “nappy boogers.” I hated that bitch. I told myself that it couldn’t be her. I was two thousand miles away from childhood. I immediately touched my nose. It was my OCD. My nose leaked constantly as a child. My third grade teacher used to say I was going to die with a head of naps and nose of full of captain crunch boggers.
“It’s me, Ms. Arkansas.” It had to be some type of joke. She hugged me. She grabbed for my nose and swiped her index figure in it like a white glove. I retracted. It was Ms. Arkansas. What the fuck? I turned to the cashier who now looked at me as if I vomited an afro of crusted mucus all over her counter. I turned away. The flirting was over. I told Ms. Arkansas she had the wrong person. Nappy boogers don’t live here anymore.