Hey, Wheezie!

This evening, while standing in line at the cashier, a woman joined the line behind me.

Close behind me.

Now, under normal circumstances, the distance at which she stood wouldn't have been close enough to make me uncomfortable, but this woman was breathing rather heavily. Gaspingly. Raspily. And having a heavily gasping, raspy breather behind you doubles the "acceptable distance" requirements. The heavily gasping, raspy breather was therefore uncomfortably close to me.

Then she spoke. She spoke and said something head-shaking.

"Do you know where I can buy cigarettes around here?"

She asked for smokes.

The heavily gasping, raspy breather asked for smokes.

Now there's a good idea.

She even followed up by saying, "I just can't catch my breath!"

Do you have any idea how difficult it was to keep from saying, "Oh yeah. When you can't breathe, it's usually a good idea to smoke some more."

At this point, she started dropping all of her purchases, into a pile on the floor and grabbing a few more impulse purchases to add to the pile.

I made my getaway while I was still keeping silent on the whole thing.