Dispensing the Freakiness!

My brother says that the reason I meet all these unique individuals is because I break the cardinal rule every time. The cardinal rule, you ask? Make no eye contact. Come on. That’s not me. I have to look people in the eyes. And so the strange encounters continue…



Even with my mom in the hospital, these folks find me. So, I’m hanging out in her room in ICU and I finish the book I’m reading. I decide to head on down to the gift shop on the first floor to buy a new book. I grab my wallet and hop on over to the elevator. While I’m standing there waiting, I push the hand sanitizer dispenser and it is obviously a very generous dispenser since it places a ginormous glob of the stuff into my palm. Blech.


As I’m standing there rubbing and rubbing to try to get this stuff to dry into my skin, a guy walks up beside me. I make quick conversation just saying, “Don’t you hate it when these machines give you way too much of this stuff. It’s kinda disgusting.” Right then the elevator door opens and I begin to step into the elevator and I realize this guy has stepped up right behind me… with his chest touching my back and he leans down and whispers in my ear, “When you get that much, that’s when you rub all over each other.” And then the elevator door closes and he and I are the only ones in it. Yikes.


So I try to keep it light and breezy and I say, “Really? Hand sanitizer, huh? That’s interesting.”


He switches topics and invites me to step outside for a smoke break with him. I say, “No thanks. I don’t smoke.” He is not fazed. He says, “So? You can still keep me company.”


I thank him but tell him I’m on a mission, so no thanks. The elevator doors open and I get out of there in a hurry, briskly walking through the lobby thinking that I’m shaking him. Not so much. He’s right beside me keeping time. I’m thinking, “For the love of God, freaky deaky…”


Right then I look up and standing in front of me is one of my good friends from high school. I’m pretty sure I’ve never been so happy to see him. So, I rush up and give him a big hug and finally my hand sanitation engineer gets the hint. Whew. Super Stevie to the rescue!


I’ll give the other guy a hand for trying though… yoy!


So, leaving the hospital I needed to make a stop at WalMart to buy some things for my mom’s house. As I’m zipping my cart through the aisles picking up household articles, I also am drawn to the lipstick aisle (Of course. Any of you who really know me, know that I am a lipstick nutbar.) So I’m going through the lipstick/makeup aisle and there’s a lady in one of those scooters (aka electric wheelchair type situation) and she’s blocking part of the already somewhat narrow aisle. There’s also an older gentleman with a cart walking towards me. So I stop to let him pass by. He thanks me and I say, “No worries” and keep on my way. I made eye contact though, so that will be my kiss of death in a moment.


As I’m getting to the end of the aisle, I go to turn right and here comes that same gentleman. He would have had to whip his cart around and walked quickly to catch up with me. I look a little surprised to see him. So he says, “You look like Liza Minelli.” Really? Never heard that one before and I tell him so. He continues, “You have beautiful hair. I just love it.” I thank him for his kind words and scurry along my way. I tell my friends about this little encounter and someone asks me what he looks like. Oh, he’s about 6 feet tall, 68 years old wearing bib overalls. My guess is that he’s a snow bird from Indiana and is a retired farmer. I’m from an ag family, so I mean no disrespect. I just don’t want to be his little garden ho(e). Just sayin’…