Foot In Mouth Disease
by Paul Staller
I do it all the time, and there may be better examples, but this is one that I need to get of my chest.
I was driving from Atlantic City to California, with my then fiancée, and we stopped to gas up at some western Pa rest stop. I handled the refueling and she hit the restroom. The pump wouldn’t take my card, and the clerk came out to tell me that it was okay if I paid him afterwards—it was cold, he was being polite. My car was packed inside and out, and I was preoccupied with the pump, so I barely noticed he was on crutches. All but his head and shoulders where obscured from view. No big deal.
I topped of my tank and went inside to pay, and drag my fiancée out of the toilet—she used to love it in there. I was in a good mood and feeling chatty when I approached the counter. Now I could see clearly that the clerk was on crutches, but the counter blocked my view from his waist down. I quickly assessed that this well-muscled late-teen was a high school or college athlete with an injury and the western Pennsylvania work ethic to keep him working even on crutches.
Damn, it was just so quiet. There was nobody else there except a female clerk at the other register and the radio was barely audible. I was almost positive I could hear my fiancée struggling with “something” in the John, and I just started blathering.
For reasons I cannot explain, I felt compelled to thank him for letting me pump without credit card confirmation and pay after I was done. So, I did. He just nodded silently, and my fiancée continued grunting away in the distance. The blathering continued as he slowly ran my card.
“You know, I was considering driving off before you could drag that busted leg out to chase me down,” I joked. Man, I thought that was funny. He didn’t even smirk. I continued, “So, what happened anyway? Ski accident?” It made sense, there was 3 feet of snow on the ground.
“I had a stroke when I was nine,” he responded.
“Oh… sorry.”
When we got back into the car, I told my fiancée about the exchange and she was horrified. “Didn’t you see him when he came out? His legs were shriveled and bent like a shrimp tail.”
Like a fucking shrimp tail. He probably thought I was either the dumbest or meanest person in the world, and he was shocked at my insensitivity. But, you’d think that having a stroke as a 9 year-old kid would toughen you up a bit.
Comments
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