Stupid and Contagious (7 page)

“Even though this game is like a hundred years old, I stil love it,” Phil says.

“It’s not a hundred years old, Phil.”

Then it hits him. “We should get a Ping-Pong table here.”

“Ya think?” I say.

“Total y!”

“We’re not living in a dorm anymore.”

“Ping-Pong!”

“Phil?”

“Yeah?”

“What do you think I’m about to say?” I ask.

“That I should stop playing video games because it’s making your ass itch.”

“Very good.”

“Brady?” he says.

“Yeah, Phil.”

“I think your milk idea real y is good.”

“Thanks.”

“And if you make money with it,” he says, “I hope you’l buy us a Ping-Pong table for the office.”

“I’m sure you do, Phil.”

Heaven

I got my mold test kit in the mail today. Along with some other guy’s mail, which I opened. His name is Brady, and apparently he neglects his grandmother, because she says she never hears from him. She sent him a ten-dol ar bil , which I left in the envelope, of course. He also has a psycho ex-girlfriend who sent him his toothbrush back, accompanied by a nasty note. I think the mail might be for my new retarded neighbor.

I open my mold test kit and there’s not much to it.

It’s a petri dish and some sticky honey-like stuff. I think i t
is
honey. Weird. Supposedly I leave it out in the open for an hour, then seal and keep it in a dark place for three days. Then I mail it back to the lab, and they’l give me my analysis in ten days to two weeks. For an extra five dol ars, they’l rush it.

I pour the honey gunk into the dish and let it sit. It even smel s like honey, and it’s making me crave something sweet, like a Krispy Kreme. After two minutes I’m desperate for a doughnut, and I’m scouring my entire apartment for loose change because I don’t have any cash to buy one. Seventy-three cents. Shit. Hmmm. I remember the ten-spot that Retardo’s grandmother sent him. What harm would there be in borrowing it? It’s for a good cause.

Downstairs in the deli, the anticipation of the first bite of my tasty glazed doughnut is making my mouth water. I stand there looking at my three Krispy Kremes and large coffee, almost enjoying the moment, but I sense someone else’s gaze, which is ruining it. I look up to see some guy waiting in line with an egg-salad sandwich, staring at me and my three doughnuts, and he’s making me self-conscious.

“They aren’t al for me,” I lie with a dismissive wave at the doughnuts. But my fingertip catches the chocolate icing on one of the Bavarian Cream Fil ed, so I lick the icing off my finger while I read his T-shirt. It says “667 . . . the neighbor of the beast.” “Funny shirt,”

I say. He’s got real y,
really
blue eyes.

“You have an eyelash,” he says.

“Hopeful y, I have more than one,” I say in an attempt to be clever. But before either of us can enjoy my wit, he reaches up and wipes the eyelash off my face and smiles.

“There,” he says. I’m boiling. I’m fuming. I could kil this egg-salad-eating asshole. I don’t care
how
blue his eyes are.

“What did you just do?” I ask with al kinds of attitude.

“I wiped off your eyelash,” he says with al of the nonchalance of . . . wel , of any other day in the life of someone who just wipes an eyelash off someone’s face with complete disregard for the consequences. I look around, and I don’t see my lash anywhere.

“And where is it?” I ask, knowing ful wel that he doesn’t know.

“It’s off your face.”

“That was a wish.”

He furrows his brow and squints his eyes a little.

“Pardon?”

“A wish. You just stole a wish from me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I real y could have used that wish.”

“Real y, I’m sorry. I just thought . . .” he stammers. “I don’t know. It was stupid, I don’t even know you. It was just sitting there on your face and . . . I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Wel , you should be,” I snap.

“I am. Jesus!” he says, suddenly al
what’s your
problem?

“What, are you going to be mad at
me
now? I didn’t steal
your
wish.”

“I wouldn’t care if you did.”

“Wel , I wouldn’t.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” he says. “Okay? Real y.” I start to feel bad about going off on him. A little.

“It’s okay . . . wish stealer.” He laughs. I crack a smile, too, but secretly I am pissed.

“You can have one of mine,” he says. “I’l yank one out right now.”

“No, that won’t count. It has to be a lash that natural y fal s out.” He gets on his knees and starts looking for my lash.

“Maybe I can find it,” he says.

“Just forget it.”

“No, maybe it’s here somewhere. I’l bet I can find it.

Here, look. I’ve already found a string bean and a Sprite cap. Your lash can’t be far behind.”

“Okay, that’s just gross. Get up.”

“No.”

“Forget my lash.”

“I feel bad,” he says as he scours the floor.

“The floor looks a little sticky there. God only knows what you’re kneeling in.”

“I’m standing up now,” he says. He wipes off his knees and comes face-to-face with me, and for the first time I real y get a look at him. And he’s cute. Kind of. Hard to tel . I can’t see that wel with my missing eyelash. But he does have those blue eyes. Looks like he has a good body. Not like a bodybuilder, but in shape. Cute smile.

“I’m sorry about your lash,” he says. “Real y, I am.

And I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t ever be so careless with someone else’s wish again.”

“Good,” I say, and I leave without looking back.

Brady

I met a cute girl today. Or at least she started out cute.

Then she opened her mouth and her head al but spun around. Had the nerve to tel me I stole her wish, whatever the hel
that
was about. Talk about high maintenance. And psycho. She had like seventeen doughnuts in her hands. Nice ass, too. It’s probably expanding right this second.

I sit on my couch in my otherwise empty apartment and take out my egg-salad sandwich. Just as I’m about to take my first bite, there’s a knock at my door.

I open it. To my surprise—and horror—it’s her. The crazy doughnut-eating, eyelash-wishing girl from the deli downstairs.

“Hi, I’m your neighbor, and I have some of your mail,” she says. Then she realizes it’s me. “You? You live here?”

“Yes, I live here.”

“You’re the
retard
?”

“The what?”

“Nothing.”

“So, we’re neighbors?” I ask in a please-don’t-let-this-be-true kind of way.

“Yeah. So . . . yeah. Here’s your mail,” she says.

“You should pay more attention to your poor grandmother. And if I were you I wouldn’t use that toothbrush.”

She opened my mail?

“You opened my mail?”

“Kind of.”

“Yeah, looks that way.” She didn’t just open my mail. She tore it open. Wasn’t even careful about it. It looks like a dog went at it in search of a Milk-Bone.

“That’s a federal offense, you know.”

“Oh, and I borrowed a tenner,” she adds casual y.

“What?”

“Your grandmother sent you ten dol ars. And I borrowed it because I was famished. But I’l pay you back. Promise.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just a little shocked. You opened my mail
and
stole money from it?”

“I didn’t steal it, I
borrowed
it. I said I’d give it back, didn’t I?” She’s got this entitled air, like it’s my fault for exposing her to the temptation of the
tenner.

I look over her shoulder, as if some explanation might be trailing just slightly behind her. “That’s just so odd,” I say.

“Not real y. It’s not that odd. If I took it out and peed on it and then gave it back to you,
that
would be odd. I simply borrowed it and wil give it back. I can go to the ATM right now if you want.”

“It’s okay.”

“I even have a doughnut left. I’l give you your ten bucks back and a doughnut’s worth of interest.”

“You can keep your doughnut.”

“Fine,” she says.

“Fine,” I say back.

“And you’re welcome for your mail.”

And she storms back into her apartment, which happens to be right next door to mine. What a freak!

Heaven

What a creep! They say no good deed goes unpunished, and it’s true. That’s what I get for doing him the favor of delivering his mail. A bunch of attitude. Attitude from the jerk that stole my wish, I might add. The wish that very wel could have been the most important wish of my life. I could have wished on that lash for the man I’m going to marry, and maybe that was the lash that would have brought him.

Now I’l never know. Because of him. Or I could have wished for a root beer fountain in my apartment that would never run dry. He has some nerve getting mad at me.

I notice my petri dish sitting on the table. It’s time to close it and hide it under the bed. The directions said to put it in a suitcase under my bed but I’m sure a shoe box wil suffice. I’m reminded of “The Princess and the Pea” and get to thinking . . . What kind of a girl is going to feel a pea under her mattress? And furthermore, what kind of a man is going to find a girl who is so distressed by a measly little pea and think,

“Now
that
is the woman for me.” I think if a man found himself a woman that tossed and turned al night because she had a pea under her mattress, he’d run for the hil s. That is some high-maintenance woman right there. I myself can sleep with al kinds of things under me, or around me. Like a remote . . . or a book

. . . or some recent magazines. Sometimes it’s easier to just leave things rather than move them. I remember one time I had so many things piled up al over my bed there was barely enough room for me to sleep in it. But I did it. Uncomfortably, sure. But I slept. And would have done it again the next night had Sydney not physical y removed said items when she came over the next morning to drag me out of bed for coffee. She was mortified by my very few inches of sleeping room. The point is: I am not high maintenance. At least not in the
pea
sense. In fact, not in most senses. Sure, I like my share of attention, but I’m pretty easygoing. For the most part.

Sydney and I go to Starbucks for our daily morning coffee get-together, and she is wearing a beret. This is Sydney’s newest attempt to deflect attention from what she perceives as a flat chest—some people have crosses to bear, this is Sydney’s.

“What is on your head?” I ask.

“Hair?” she quips.

“Okay, Monica.”

“Don’t give me that. I think it’s cute.”

“It’s not. Berets don’t look good on anyone. They’re stupid.”

“They are not,” she says, indignant. “I’m not letting Monica Lewinsky spoil it for me. Plus, you said you liked her. Didn’t you wait on her once?”

“She didn’t spoil anything. There was never anything remotely okay about wearing one. They’re awful. And yes, I liked her a lot. Very nice girl. And were she my friend back in the day, I wouldn’t have let her wear one either.”

She slurps her coffee, then stops mid-slurp. “What about Prince?”

“What about him?”

“‘Raspberry Beret’? You may recal a certain mega-hit about a certain fruit-colored chapeau?”

“You may recal the lyric? ‘A raspberry beret? The kind you find in a secondhand store’? That’s because they’ve been out of style so long that you can’t find them in a normal store. And because they are hideous.”

“So I’m supposed to believe that the entire country of France is wrong?” she says.

“Oh, don’t get me started on the French.”

“You’re just jealous I can pul it off,” she says, turning her face away.

“Sweetie, if anyone could pul it off, I promise it’s you. But a beret is not okay. And that even rhymes so you can remember it easier.”

“I like it, and I’m wearing it.”

“Okay then. Al you,” I say. She pouts for a minute and then takes the stupid thing off.

“Thank you.”

“You’re not welcome.”

“It’s only because I love you. I wouldn’t let you walk around with poppy seeds in your teeth. I wouldn’t let you walk around in jeans that made you look fat. And I wil not let you walk around in a beret. That is my credo. And so it is written.”

“And so it shal be done. And so you shal be buying our second round this morning due to al this unnecessary stress I’ve suffered.”

“Fine,” I say and go to the counter to order.

When I sit back down with our coffees, Sweet’n Low, and stirrers, I start in on my jerk neighbor and tel her what happened. What the hel kind of name is Brady, anyway? Sydney, of course, asks if he’s hot.

And no, he is not hot. She asks if he’s passable.

Again I tel her no. She’s asking because if he is, then one of us needs to date him. Even if he was, it certainly wouldn’t be me, and I wouldn’t let him have her either. We deserve perfect princes. And him? The wish-wrecking neighbor from hel ? He should end up with a trol .

“Oh! I didn’t tel you the latest,” she says. “I got set up on a blind date with this guy named Ed, and he kept making this face on our whole first date.”

“What kind of face?”

“He kept doing
this
,” she says, making this fish face. She’s sticking her lips out like she’s either puckering up or making fish lips. “After the first date I thought
no way,
but then I decided not to be shal ow and that I’d give him another chance.”