The Things You See

I was lounging in a Panera the other day. As is my habit, I had a look around to see if anything of interest was going on. You know. All of life is research and you never know when something will pop up that can be used in a book at some point.

Overall it seemed a fairly average day. Tame even. No drama to be found. Some obvious coworkers out for a quick coffee, a grown daughter taking a break from shopping with an aged mother, a few typical self-important business men. Nothing to hold my attention. Or not until I came across two moms with their two 5 or 6 year old daughters that is.

Moms were nicely dressed, summer casual. Daughters had on cute sun dresses with tidy, combed hair. Average, right? Yep, I thought so too until one of the daughters began licking the wall. Not little, secretive licks. Full on, flat tongue, crouching down in the booth to standing on her tiptoes, stretching as far as she can slurps.

The moms glanced at her and went on with their conversation. Daughter two played with her straw. Daughter one swabbed the wall non-stop for at least seven minutes. It was one of those horrid fascination moments when it made my skin crawl to watch yet I couldn’t look away.

Yeah. I have no clue where or how I’ll use this one but I suspect it will appear in something, somewhere, sometime. Probably in some sort of twisted horror story.