vandrophobia

Everything is Weirder When a Cammin Meets Treviso

The old cashier at Walgreens and I have become quite familiar.

It started several months ago with…

"Stomach problems again?" he would say in a sympathetic voice.

I would nod, then dump out my Tums, Pepto-Bismol, and Zantac onto the checkout counter.

Then later with…

"Dry eyes again?" he would say, again in a sympathetic tone.

I would nod, then dump out my Visine Dry Eyes, Visine Red Eyes, and Visine for Contacts onto the checkout counter.

And now…

"Chapped lips again?" the nice old man says to me.

I nod, then dump out ten small packages of Chapstick onto the counter.

"Poor girl," he says as he swipes each product, "You must be allergic to everything."

"I guess you could say that."

The old man shakes his head. "What is it? Pollen? Weed? Grass? Food?"

"Wintar," I say without thinking and hand the man cash.

"Wintar?" the old man repeats. "Do you mean Winter? Winter is very cold and tends to cause a lot of problems for people because of the lack of humidity. But some people like the season anyways. Seem drawn to the cold beauty of it."

He hands me my change. "Know what I mean?"

I can't help but smile a little. "Completely."

Not even out the door yet, I tear open a new lip balm and begin applying it. I keep going non-stop for several minutes.

"I thought you'd be here."

I freeze. The lip balm falls out of my hand.

"I know Chapstick is a neutral color so you think you can put as much as you want on, but in your case, less is still more."

I turn around and Wintar is standing next to his car.

"H-Hey!" I say to his chin.

Say something else Lira!

Um…

Um…

"Wazzzuppppppppp," I say with a surfer sign.

Maybe you shouldn't have said anything.

Wintar laughs a little. "Why so shy now? You just knocked over fifteen girls an hour earlier just to tell me you like me."

Please don't remind me!

You see, I need a 24-hour waiting period after confessing…It is during this time I can go through all the stages of utter embarrassment and absolute denial before returning to normal…

I'm still at Stage 1. The stage where I drop my Chapstick and blur the words, "What's up?" completely together. Oh, and make the surfer sign.

We both don't speak for a bit.

"This Sunday," Wintar suddenly says. "Lesdosomeding."

What?

Wintar grabs the back of his neck.

Is he…nervous?

Wintar Cammin...nervous?

And suddenly, somewhere in the back of my mind, a haughty Lira poofs out of nowhere with her hands on her hips, leaning backwards and laughing out loud in happiness.