You know how you get a bit of fat gooey gristle stuck in your teeth? And you use your tongue like a flaccid toothpick trying to extract it? Imagining that your barbarism is noticeable to no one when in fact you are the greatest of annoyances to those around you? That's what Bernadette said I was being, just annoying. I was coming back from the beach this morning, 9 foot rod in hand, heh heh, and I paused at the first house to talk 911 conspiracy theory with the occupant or rather listen to him talk, me perched on my girl's bike, and he leaning hunched over on too-short crutches, when there came up the road two women who seeing us stopped to talk. I had seen them on the beach days before, walking, for that's what people do on the beach here as it seems to escape them that they could just as easily be fishing. But usually its just me fishing or sometimes me and Bernadette, when she's not swimming, and everyday people see me out there, lanky, unkempt, casting forever casting, but aging and with nary a healthy piece of cartilage in my joints to aid me in my quest for that adrenal rush of a line ripping monster fish. I keep a bag of frozen peas in the freezer for my cartilage. The one woman introduced herself and I said my name without first repeating hers so that I would remember and true to that I don't, not even a clue. I was greatful for a break in the conspiracy talk as the three of them referred to things I knew nothing about. The other woman, who did less talking, had that fixed smile with crinkly eyes that could possibly imply a former career as a high end sports clothing model, intelligent and insightful seeming, or, and here's the thing, maybe not. So she became the gristle stuck in my teeth because I could not get that catalog model's smile out of my head and when I got home I did horribly bad imitations of it for Bernadette. And while she appreciated, briefly, my enthusiasm she soon grew tired and told me that I was being what I already knew I was being which is annoying. Sometimes when people are annoyed themselves they like to share it is all. It is a kind of self exorcism, gentler if perhaps no less grotesque than the projectile vomiting, 360 head spinning kind.
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Gristle