
Muddy Puddles
Boulder, Colorado, USA
N and I were sloshing along the red bricks near the stank-aura of LUSH when a college-aged dude with red-drunk cheeks infected our bubble. He smelled like he’d just done a tequila enema. He stared at me with wild, bloodshot eyes.
N, who insisted that I call her Deirdre in this story, didn’t see him at first.
She joked to me, “bro, I think I miss my vape. I can’t remember though.” It’s always funny to make fun of all the stoned Boulderites.
This guy and his feverish invader face. Maybe he was a vape dealer. I thought he might fight me for our rude vaping comments. According to his eye color and glossiness, he seemed to be peaking on a Sativa gummy bear.
He raised a hand aggressively, and then inserted two fingers into his ear hole, and pulled out a florescent yellow ear plug. He mushed it around between his fingers and he spoke over me, to Deirdre.
“HEY!” He was talking too loudly, like someone wearing one ear plug. “CAN I ask you a QUESTION.” It was a statement. We kept walking, keeping pace, and our eyebrows were pointing like daggers.
“Why did you go AROUND that puddle back there?”
“What?” Deirdre said.
“That PUDDLE. You walked AR-OUND it.” Brown slush seeped into gutters. He’s getting condescending, as if we didn’t mean ‘what… the fuck are you talking to us for?’
“You’re wearing BOOTS,” he observed. “HE’S wearing SNEAKERS, so I can see WHY he walked around THE PUDDLE.” I nodded. I was wearing trainers, so my feet had been pruney and frozen all day. I felt like he understood me and my impractical Nikes for a second. Then I remembered WTF is this guy doing talking to my woman, and I soured up again.
“I don’t know,” Deirdre said. His eyes were getting redder, and he was breathing heavy, getting ready to explode.
“The puddles are FUN!” he said so combatively that he almost made himself scream. He was so wound up that he made a barking sound, like BAW!
He was not selling puddles very well at all.
“Ok,” Deirdre said. She knows how to talk to these nuts; let them talk themselves to death.
The guy began twisting his earplug back into his ear hole, done with us.
I said, “why are you wearing earplugs?”
He glared at me and shouted. “WHAT!?”
“Dude. Why are you wearing ear plugs?” My heart started beating as my adrenal system prepared for his attack. I became concerned that I didn’t take those Kung Fu classes on Groupon last month.
“I’m STRESSED! And it’s fucking LOUD here.” His eyes got redder and shiny. He pinched out one squishy earplug and squeezed it hatefully. Bro needed a vape. “Well. It’s not loud HERE right NOW, but I was back at Centro. That place is fucking LOUD.”
“Yea, Centro is pretty loud,” I said calmly, because I could see him lunging at me. Though I decided not to ask, I had follow up questions:
• Why did you choose us?
• Were you worried that we’d forgotten how to be free and wild children?
• Did you hope we’d become friends, laughing and jumping in puddles together?
He was twisting his earplug in again, walking faster away from us without saying goodbye.
Deirdre and I smiled at each other incredulously. Dude whipped open the door to a old-timey kids candy store called Rocket Fizz.
She said, “these wackos always find me! I need a vape, bro.”

