Note: this actually happened yesterday. I only got the first few sentences written yesterday, so I'm writing the whole post as if it all happened today.

So. Like I do several times a week, I went to the restaurant next door for lunch today. A placed my order with the skinny young woman who wears too much eye makeup. I don't think I'll ever be able to understand what compels some women to wear excessive amounts of black eyeshadow. This particular woman is very friendly and is otherwise lovely. But those eyes just kill me. I can't decide if she looks more like a raccoon or a battered wife.

Anyway. I wandered through the used books while they were preparing my sandwich, a Tim's Time-Tested Favorite. Nobody remembers the Tim for whom the sandwich is named.

I nosed around in the bargain bin for a few moments. On the other side of the bin was a 50-something woman who reeked of gin. Gin. At noon. Who does that? Who gets all pissed up in the morning and then decides to go browse for used books at lunch time?

She selected a few raggedy romance novels and went on her way.

As I was browsing through the hardcovers, I stood near another 50-something woman. This woman had a pretty strong odor, too. But not gin this time. She smelled just like steamed asparagus. I briefly considered asking her what she'd eaten for breakfast. Instead I moved on to a different rack.

The book racks there are about five feet high. The paperbacks are stocked in the racks and the hardcovers are stood on top of the racks.

Ever notice that a large percentage of hardcover books feature a portrait of the author on the back of the dust jacket? This store arranges hardcovers in such a way so that when I'm looking at the front of books on one side of a rack, I'm also seeing the back of books on the other side of that rack.

So when I pulled down that copy of "Living The Dream: From Sandusky to The Keys" and saw a portrait behind it, I paid no attention at all.

Until the portrait looked at me and blinked. Then I just about shit myself. My thought was something like, "Gah! Floating ghost head of death! Run!" Of course it was nothing of the sort. It was a woman of just the right height that all I could see over the top of the rack was her head. I never looked straight at her and my mind filled in any details I didn't see.

So I started a little bit. I recoiled from the woman with the floating head. She looked at me with an expression that seemed to ask, "What the hell's the matter with you?" Not having a good answer to that question, I blocked her view by putting the book back and scurried off to the counter to get my sandwich.

The sandwich was quite tasty. I found it very pleasant, especially considering that the sandwich had little in common with raccoons, gin, asparagus or human heads.