No Honey, That’s Jesus.

The following is an actual, honest to God, conversation I had with a Wal-Mart checkout lady last week.  I think it is an excellent representation of why I consider Toothlesstown, VA to be a gem among rural towns.

The Setting: I stand next in line at Register 12 behind a biker chick having a very personal, very loud phone call.  I am now close enough to the front of the line that I awkwardly smile and say hello to my checker who winces back. She looks shockingly like Karen Carpenter, but with more protuberant teeth.

Me: Wow!  You have really pretty eyes!

“Hello!  My name is Angie”: Well thank you!  That is just so niiice.

Me: [holds smile for another second then breaks eye contact to fiddle with keys]

Angie: [holds silence for 8 beats and then in a voice filled with portentousness and in the accent of Blanche Devereaux from the Golden Girls…] You know they say the EYE-YES are the WIN-DOWS to the SO-WEL! [Widens eyes to maximum]

Me:  Umm... yeah, I think I have heard that somewhere.

Angie:  I believe it is true.  AbsoLUTEly.

Me: [awkwardly] well then your soul must be very lovely.

Angie: [staring unblinking into my eyes with her serial killer stare] You know, I think you must be riiight.  Do you kno-ow, two yea-ars ago I had a ra-are brain tumor was in a coma for TWO-and-a-HALF months?

Me: Wow!

Angie: Ye-us.  Mah brain was so swollen that mah skull had to hang off of mah brain for TWO-and-a-half MONTHES.

Me: Well, you hair looks great.

Angie: [not missing a beat] Mah condition was so ra-are that only two cases have evah been reported in the United States.  I was given a two par-cent chance of livin’. 

Me: Well that is an amazing story, you must’ve had great doctors.

Angie: No honey, that’s Jey-sus

Me: [terrified smile]

It is finally my turn to check out and Angie starts scanning and bagging my food which I suddenly wish she was not handling for reasons I cannot explain.

Me: [Swiping my debit card] So… did you have cool dreams while you were in a coma?

Angie: Why no child, they weren’t dreams!  I went to heaven!

Me:  To heaven?  Really? 

Angie: Of co-ourse!  Jey-sus came to me and led me up to heaven where my grandma met me and wrapped me up in her aarms.   She’d been dead these fifteen whole ye-ars, God rest her.

Me: So… you really saw… Jesus?

Angie: Why, every day!  Jey-sus and I were tight up in Heaven!  But then you know after a month or so, he came to me and took me in his aarms and said, “Angie- it is not yet your tiiime.  I have a great-ar purpose for you.  YOU MUST GO BACK!  And so I did.”

Me: [Nodding so the Keeper of the Crazy Eyes wont attack me] That’s amazing!  And how lucky too, because it took all the mystery out of death!  You don’t have to be afraid of dying anymore and you don’t have to worry about having faith because you have already seen it all!

Angie: Oh, I nevah had trouble with faith!  Imma good Christian woman all my life.

Me: Really?  That’s cool.  I am more of a flip-flopper about the existence of God myself.  But thanks! 

Angie: [Stares at me in horror]

Me: Have a good night! [I flee into the night before she hands me white pajamas or offers me some Kool-Aid]