…And just like that, she whispered in my ear something so disgusting, so grotesque, something so pretentious, I could hardly contain my emotions.
I leaned back in my chair, in this fancy auditorium in an opera house, and I said, “you talk to your mother with that mouth?”
It was sacrilegious in this house of worship. Liza Minelli performed here. Barbra. Julie. Carol. I could go on all night!
Janelle leaned forward some to say, “I didn’t think it was that bad.”
“I COULDN’T— I couldn’t even think of something like that. How do you get your mind in the gutter, no, the sewer?”
“You don’t think you’re overreacting?” Janelle was looking around to see if anyone was noticing me raising my voice in public.
“This is serious. This is seriously disturbing. I don’t know why you would say something like that to me. I know. You didn’t mean it. You’re lying. It was a joke.” At this point I was flustered and beghast. I almost fainted right there. Right on the red carpet.
“Shannon, please get up off the floor. You didn’t faint.”
Those were the last words I heard before they had to take me away on a stretcher.
“HUH,” I thought. “Let’s see if Janelle believes me now that I fainted…” I said that in my head when I woke up and they were putting me in the ambulance.
“Where is she going?” Janelle asked the EMT.
“Now, we’re going to have to be gentle about this: your friend is going to the funny farm.” The EMT shut the back doors of the ambulance, sealing Shannon into the truck. He turned back to Janelle.
“What is it exactly that you said?” the EMT asked.
I said, “people only go to plays to see the nudity.”
The EMT nearly vomited on the spot. He ran into the back of the truck.
“I’m gonna need some oxygen!” The EMT hollered.
Seconds before the ambulance drove away, Janelle knocked on the ambulance back door two times and then walked away, downtrodden.
Only Some Stories 