A Quick One

Years ago. I'm working the cash register close to closing time. The only customer in the store is an old guy who eventually comes up to buy a Penthouse. I don't really look at him as I ring it up and tell him the total is something like $6.24. He gives me a five and a one then proceeds to haul out one of those vinyl coin things where you have to squeeze the top and bottom to get it to open, a mechanical maneuver I never mastered, thus my disdain for the things. He starts shaking out coins onto the counter top. For my own amusement (and maybe my own--who knows, his too?--comfort, since ringing up nudie mag sales is always a bit awkward) I start counting aloud the change as it worms its way out of the vinyl thing to clink down to the counter: "Ten, fifteen, twenty, one, two, three, and...four," I exclaim in triumph, "six twenty-four, right on the nose!" And just as I say "nose" I look up at the guy for the first time and all I see is nose--the biggest, gnarliest, pockmarkedest, bulbous honker I've ever seen. The olfactory equivalent of a Macy's parade balloon. It was the guy's face. I'm sure if the guy had more coin in that little vinyl venus flytrap of his he would have gladly paid for a nose job the "after" picture of which would have made him look like Jimmy Durante or Karl Malden. I almost swallowed my own non-descript nose in embarrassment. Luckily the guy was old and must have been well used to people looking him in the nose with utter astonishment because he didn't react in any noticeable way. Good thing, too, because if he had flared his nostrils and inhaled even slightly, I'd have been the Jonah of proboscises. But no, he just took the receipt and the bagged mag, smiled and said thank you, and followed his nose out the door. Still, I'd rather have an occasionally accident-prone big mouth than that big nose, any day.

Richard Thompson-Oops!...I Did It Again