Saturday, April 14, 2012

The Girl with the Pierced Nipples

The Girl with the Pierced Nipples was back in the store yesterday.

It was that slowest part of mid-afternoon and I was on my laptop, so when she walked up to the counter I started to raise my head, but I only got as high as her chest before saying, “Hi! The usual QuickPick and a pack of Marlboro Menthol 100’s?”

And from somewhere a voice said, “Exactly!”  as those familiar barbell piercings rubbed against her thin white cotton shirt with her every inhalation and with her every word. So I pulled the QuickPick, grabbed her pack of cigarettes, and went back to watching the show with the piercings… and the bouncing… and, of course, with the thin white cotton shirt…

“It’s an ankh,”  the girl’s distant voice suddenly informed me in a tone so matter-of-fact-like I was sure it must be connected to the situation at hand in some tenuous, yet-to-be-determined way. But how?

“My necklace,” she said more insistently. “It’s an ankh.”  She proceeded to point at a huge and garish green Egyptian hieroglyph necklace swinging precisely midway between her breasts and which had somehow completely escaped my attention until just that moment.

“An a-a-n-n-kh?… Hmm…”  I tried to muster up a facial expression conveying, you know, “Tell me more” – that perfect mix of confusion and interest that would keep the conversation going. And I slid the cigarettes across the counter to her just as she launched into an explanation of her great spiritual energy, and that’s when the real show began.

You see, the Girl with the Pierced Nipples packs her cigarettes harder and longer than any person I have ever witnessed. I’ve considered calling Guinness. Why, I’ll bet those cigarettes can only be about three-quarters of an inch long by the time she’s done whacking them against the heel of her palm for four, five, maybe six minutes.

The trick is always to keep her in the store while she does this.

Bap!  Went the pack of cigarettes. Bap!  And then the piercings… and more bouncing… and, of course, the thin white cotton shirt. And it was one of those eternal frozen moments that just don’t come along all that often in life, and I felt weightless. Carefree. As though there was no “I”  in me to worry about all of the… the… well, whatever the hell it was “Katy”  normally worried herself about.

Bap!  “And I’ve always felt this, like, you know, connection with the ancient Egyptians…” Bap! “…and my psychic says it’s probably because, like…” Bap!

Rattle.

Rattle?

The rattle ruined everything. I knew that rattle. I looked over to where we keep the cold remedies and sure enough, there was Robitussin Lady – wearing sunglasses and what for all the world looked to be a full-length, glitzy blue and silver ball gown – nearly falling backwards into the rack of pills.

I interrupted the Girl with the Pierced Nipples. I asked, “Why would somebody who doesn’t have the sniffles buy ten bottles of Robitussin gel caplets every single Friday?”

The Girl with the Pierced Nipples looked back at Robitussin Lady, who just then was trying to cradle ten bottles of her namesake in her arms and walk up to the counter simultaneously. She was at least six feet away, though, and that gave me a good five more minutes to spend with the Girl with the Pierced Nipples.

“She’s partyin’!” the Girl with the Pierced Nipples said. “Robitussin caplets are hallucinogens.”

Google agreed. Robitussin gel caplets contain something called Dexomethorphan or DXM, which, when taken in ridiculously high doses, acts as a dissociative and low-grade hallucinogen.

The Girl with the Pierced Nipples – who as it turned out, possessed shoulders and a head and even a face – looked pensive for a moment and then did this conspiratorial, Susanna Hoffs thing with her eyes. “Hey… Is she buying ALL of the Robitussin?”

*           *           *

“Hey, baby!”  At three o’clock, on the nose, Dana – who is my wife – walked into my shop for her daily Wrigley’s sugar free spearmint gum and small bottle of orange juice.

I had it already bagged up and ready to go when she walked in.

Dana said, “Do you know you have a dead hippie with pierced nipples lying in your doorway and clutching a bottle of Robitussin?”

The truth was that no, I couldn’t see down that far from behind the counter. It made sense, though, and I’d been wondering where she had fallen.

Dana grabbed her change and turned to walk away.

“It’s called an ankh!”  I shouted after her.

Dana waved without turning back around.

I said, “Anyway, you shouldn’t be looking at another woman’s nipples! How would you like it if I started talking about some hippie chick’s nipple piercings?”

Then, there was only me again. I climbed back up on my stool.

Just another day in my underground snack shop.


52 comments:

  1. Stay away from the Robitussin and stick to the Benadryl. Srsly. I was once very close to the editor of "Tussin Up" 'Zine: http://tussinup.whybark.com/

    That did not end well. Like I said, stick to the Benadryl.

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    1. Yup, wouldn't be my thing. I'm not a big fan of tripping on anything, actually... which is sort of weird because I like psychedelic art and the psychedelic mindset in general.

      That zine looks pretty wild, and it sounds like there's an interesting story behind the whole Steve Millen thing...

      Delete
  2. Nice title you got there. Coincidentally I watched "Girl with dragon tattoo movie today and this ankh nipple lady does sound like Lisbeth.
    Based on what people buy from store I guess we can predict their future it looks like, do you have a Psychic shop next to your store?
    And if depositing more than 10k could send an alert to IRS, and more than use of words like B@#B, T!@#@@IST if could send alert to SS, shouldnt the same work for Marlboro, Menthol, Benadryl and Robitussin too?
    Body piercings are a turn-on or turn-off? In India, only grandmas will have more holes in their body, meaning artificial holes. For younger generation ear-piercing and nose piercing and if you are a ultra modern chick maybe additional 2 more but that's it. But nipples, eyebrows, navel are a total non-no. And only religious cult celebrations will have piercing all over your body and that would scare the hell out of you, I stay away from temples and roads during the festive period.
    At your risk
    http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=murugan+body+piercing&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=muruganbody+piercing&sc=0-16&sp=-1&sk=#x0y0

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    1. In Texas, there are certain over-the-counter medications that DO put you on the grid, mostly if there's any way those meds can be used in the production of meth.

      Certainly, using those words in a blog get you (or, rather, ME) a lot of weird traffic.

      Me, I'm pretty boring these days - or at least I don't need to LOOK more interesting than what I am. I've got enough people who object to me already without adding 100 piercings to my head to remove all possibility of ever blending in...

      Delete
  3. Wait, who died in your doorway with a bottle of Robitussin? It doesn’t make any sense.

    Well anyway, I have, however, just figured out from this slightly confusing essay just why lesbians are lesbians.

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    1. Sometimes my blogs are more confusing than I intend. I'd tell you to read it again if I thought all would be revealed the second time through. It is what it is.

      Delete
    2. I actually know whom you intended the Robitussin Lady to be, and, what the pierced nipples person represented, but why would the two got mixed up and died at your door? And neither of you bothered to call 911? Are lesbians all this cold-hearted, I wonder.

      I mean, if every time I saw that person I was thinking non-stop about sucking on those pierced nipples, then I would have personally rushed her to the hospital, and thanked God all along the ambulance ride for such a blessed opportunity, even though I am a manifesto-carrying Communist.

      You must not be a real lesbian in real life, because you clearly didn’t have your priority straight.

      Delete
    3. It's all a much bigger mystery than I imagined when I posted it. Stay tuned for NEXT week's, "The Katy Mysteries." Most episodes revolve around Katy's inability to write a simple story in a way that readers can follow.

      Delete
  4. Just as an aside, was her tongue pierced too?

    Funny how synchronicity works. I am such a geek that I play Magic, the Gathering (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Summoner/) and have just made ANOTHER deck that uses and abuses Pierce Strider. (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=221561) It's enough to make me wonder if we weren't tapping into the same thought wave pattern generated by the collective unconscious.

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    1. A chick with a tongue piercing is three times more likely to be a witch than the average person. I think they did a study, but I might be making that up. It's hard for me to tell sometimes.

      Delete
    2. I don't trust "studies" like that. And do not understand the whole concept of piercing your tongue anyway. Well, let's just say I know the benefits and leave it at that.

      Delete
    3. I made the study up.

      However, I didn't make up the damage that mouth piercings can do your teeth over the long haul. Yikes.

      I'm all for people being able to do weird things to their bodies, though.

      Delete
  5. So the Girl With the Pierced Nipples died outside your doorway because she was also taking copious amounts of Robitussin, which is why she was able to tell that Robitussin Lady was buying the stuff in order to hallucinate. Or YOU are in fact a voracious consumer of Robitussin, and you hallucinated one or both them. Or your wife hallucinated the chesty corpse, in which case, I am afraid to say, you talk in your sleep.

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    1. I prefer to think of the Girl with the Pierced Nipples as a Russian Spy who was being pursued for YEARS by the CIA agent, Robitussin Lady.

      Robitussin Lady killed Pierced Nipples when I was with another customer and then made it look like an overdose.

      Of course, I also work in a snack shop, so my mind sometimes gets away from me...

      Delete
  6. Katy. Nice take on noir. I could feel the tiny air currents from the compressive "baps" on my face, prickling little ripples of goosebumps on my neck. I think I can actually hear the sound her firm nipples make as they brush the thin white cotton. "Shush... shooosh...shush," so quiet you must hold your breath to catch it.

    Might I suggest that 5464 is suffering from a transference issue? He seems to be seeing you, a healthy lesbian woman, as his own mother. I'll ask Dr. Sam if she thinks it's one of those Oedipussy dealies, or if he has abandonment/love issues. Anyone with an ID pic featuring big phallic guns intimidating a solitary figure is trying to tell us something. Are you reaching out 5464?


    This post is why you are one of the better reads on the net.

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    1. Thank you. I should probably mention that this place does double duty as a mental facility. We encourage the patients to talk, so once in a while, if you see a comment (or entire blog post) that doesn't make any sense, you can attribute it to the psych wing.

      By the way, I got your book in the other day! It looks fantastic and I'm going to start it when I finish one of the two books I'm reading right now.

      It also led to an incident involving one of my tarantulas that might require its own blog to explain!

      Delete
  7. @katy
    This just got more interesting and this entire time, I was blaming my IQ for getting some parts of your posts.
    And blame my movie addiction, the term "spy" always makes me visualize only Angelina Jolie, "CIA" agent Sandra Bullock and I am all tuned and sugared up to learn more, so dont make us wait next week
    And this psych twist is another interesting twist in tale,( I need one psych ward for my blog too, people blame me manytimes for my cryptic posts, I had been giving them "I speak no english" excuse till day)
    You writing never cease to amaze me.

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    1. When it comes to my blogs, never blame your reading comprehension.

      Delete
  8. Not surprised she died of DXM poisoning - that stuff will fuck up your head all right, but it fucks up your blood-pressure even more. Probably stroked out.

    But those nipples probably still looked pretty good.

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    1. To tell you the truth, I'm not even convinced she was dead. I mean, she was gone by the time I closed up shop.

      For a lawyer, Dana is a notoriously bad doctor. She diagnoses all three kids with cancer, pneumonia, and rare blood disorders almost weekly.

      Delete
  9. I've learned so much from this post. It seems more expensive to get high on Robutussin than just buy copious amounts of Mad Dog 20/20. Or just get a tab of LSD.
    I love the idea that you wouldn't check until you left for the night.
    Fun Fact: Cleopatra was the first to come up with Sizzurp. You can tell by all those hieroglyphs of people with animal heads. That's when she was really partying.

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    1. See? Your Cleopatra fact - which I will hold as true without bothering to Google it - proves that this blog post was a coherent and self-sustaining whole.

      It's my hope that these posts can be returned to again and again as the readers begin to unravel the multiple layers of meaning within them.

      Delete
  10. So it is like one of those magic posters, if you stared at the girl's chest long enough a large garish necklace appears. Pretty cool. There is something about nipples under a thin white shirt.

    I am so old school on ways to get high. Who knew mainlining cold meds was the new valium?

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    1. When I was trying to find pictures to use for this post (I obviously ended up just going with the Egyptian angle), I found a few news stories along the lines of "Are your kids getting high on cold medicine?"

      Apparently the answer is yes, your kids ARE in fact getting high on cold medicine.

      It made me think of the "South Park" episode where the whole school is enthralled with a TV show that shows nothing but sleeping dogs because they're all on cough syrup.

      I am opposed to substance that makes it more difficult for me to read and write.

      Delete
    2. The Egyptian angle works perfectly. And I am with you on substance abuse that makes it more difficult to read and write. Right now my drug of choice is black coffee damn near 24 hours a day. I may have a problem.

      FYI - on my bucket list is to some day sit with you and enjoy a good cigar together. Maybe a coffee, or a bottle of wine, or both.

      Delete
    3. Better be soon... I'm going through my old bad habits pretty fast these days.

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    4. No problem, I have corrupted other young women. I am sure I can spark a momentary relapse.

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    5. That sounds like a challenge.

      In this corner, in the red shorts, the Most Boring Girl in the World!

      Delete
  11. Ankh....That's the Egyptian word for "Look at my boobies"

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    1. In this case, that old Egyptian religion stuff worked.

      It really doesn't take magic for me to look, though. It might take magic for me NOT to look...

      Delete
  12. Screw the drugs, I want the girl. Is it terrible that I fell in love with her? Without ever having met her, I know exactly what she looks like.

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    1. It was probably inevitable. The girl is way preferable to the drugs, anyway!

      Delete
  13. Just how, and why, does one pack a cigarette? I've never smoked, but I've never seen anyone packing a fag either.

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    1. The paper in cigarettes tends to be just a tiny bit longer than it needs to be, so if you pull them right out of the pack, some of the tobacco can become loose and fall out, I guess?

      Tapping the cigarette pack against your leg or a desk or something before you open it smashes down the tips of the paper and compacts it all together.

      I think that's the idea, anyway.

      Delete
    2. The things one learns over on your page. My education slopes towards completion.

      Delete
    3. We're sort of like the Wikipedia of Idiocy.

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    4. Actually, what you are doing is not smashing the tops of the cigs. what you are doing is smacking on the filter end, to COMPACT the bacci . This makes the cig burn better and slower, and reduces uneven burns.

      Delete
    5. I trust Bill the Butcher will return to this thread for long enough to see your answer, which makes more sense than mine.

      It's always been one of those things I've done without thinking about why I do it.

      Delete
    6. I don't know why I think about things like this. I guess when you make a conscious decision to be aware.......

      Awareness is over-rated.

      Delete
    7. Consciousness is a curse.

      Long-term tobacco use is the cure.

      Delete
  14. LOL
    Seriously you rock at writing. Have you considered writing fiction?
    You could check out some of Bill the butcher's work.
    If you ever do write fiction and make a book out of it, I will buy it.

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    1. I write fiction bits here and there. Bill the Butcher does a good job at alternating between fiction pieces and political commentary-type pieces on his page.

      I can't seem to get that kind of mix. It's kind of hit-or-miss what topics can hold my attention for long enough to write about it. I set aside a couple hours to write, one day a week.

      But if I get decent fiction knocked out, I will tell everyone here...

      Delete
  15. Even women get in trouble for staring at nipples? Well, I don't feel so bad now, I guess. However, I feel that if you wear something like nipple rings, then you deserve to get stared at. Isn't that the point? It's like the girl who wears a skirt so short you can see her vagina, and yet, if you even glance in that direction, she gets all offended. "What are YOU looking at?" she demands, with a wrinkled brow.

    I'm looking at your vagina, lady. It's pretty much on public display.

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    1. They need to have a big book somewhere where they print all of these rules.

      One of the rules should be that "If an individual wears an outfit that begs to be stared at, another person staring at that person cannot get into trouble with their significant other for providing the staring for which the first person is so obviously in need of."

      Maybe they can write that in a way that doesn't end in a preposition, though.

      These things take time.

      Delete
  16. I like that semi-kaledoscopic image of you Katy, it looks so genuinely artistic and professional, it also brings out your stunning beauty quite magnificently.

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    1. Thank you, Teddy.

      Yes, the severe idiosyncrasies about my face seem less... idiosyncratic when there are 3 or 4 of me sort of mushed together.

      Delete
  17. "who as it turned out, possessed shoulders and a head and even a face"
    this made me lol and is something that often happens to me.
    I never knew Robitussin caused hallucinations either - but then I'm a little naive when it comes to drugs n stuff...other than beer.

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    1. I'm sort of lucky, though.

      When you stand there staring at a girl's chest, they will call you various unflattering names.

      When I do it, they make French films about it. Or other films.

      Chicks have it so easy...

      Delete
  18. That was kinda genius.

    You really should do a book of short stories. Or maybe long ones.

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    1. Thank you! I try to write longer things. My shorter pieces just turn out better.

      Delete
  19. Outstanding clickbait. I stopped by for something, but for some reason, I can't remember why. Imagine that.

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    1. Looking at this old post now, I think I'd be less subtle today. I'd probably post a picture, if not of me, then of somebody's pierced nipples, just tor reward the click.

      Delete

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