On second thoughts...
“When travelling alone,” my husband warned me once, “you need to watch your thoughts.” I never quite understood this until this morning.
Well, I wasn’t travelling as opposed to waiting in line at the bank. For no reason I can explain, I began to think of a bloke I once worked with.
Geoff would probe his ears with straightened out paper clips - and I’m not talking mere caresses here, he’d really jam that clip all the way home, then twirl it between two fingers, as if tuning into a radio station. I felt certain it must have been excruciating but Geoff seemed to draw great pleasure from it. Sometimes his eyes would roll back and he’d make rapturous gurgling noises. Maybe he thought nobody noticed, but we all sat there, transfixed. Once, during a particular rigorous session, the paper clip all but disappeared and seemed as it if it might be stuck. A colleague from across the room cried out to Geoff, enquiring if it would help if one of us pulled from the other side.
I thought of this as I peered into the pimply ear of the teenager ahead of me in the queue and I laughed out load – a sudden lunatic chortle that startled me as much as everyone else in the bank. I covered my mouth with my hand but more laughter managed to leak out. The bank’s customers and staff glared at me.
It was only by staring at my muddy sneakers and concentrating very hard that I was able to compose myself, at which point I observed what could only be described as a cornflake peaking out of the bank teller’s nose.
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