policies and painted toes

Why can’t I go anywhere and just have it be a normal experience?? I was asked to get my insurance license. I was asked to take 40 hours of insurance instruction to work 16 hours a week….go figure?! I got to the class and immediately chose a seat in the front like the teachers pet I had always wanted to be in grammar school but never got the chance because a girl named Cindy who was always so cute and so smiley and brown-nosing…..oh, sorry.. lost control there.  A very nice girl sat next to me, I mean RIGHT next to me which I found a bit odd since there were at least 30 empty seats in the room. But she was soft spoken, well dressed and looked sweet. She removed her bottled water from a bag and turned to me and said…”Don’t touch that.” I laughed thinking for sure she was kidding, and she proclaimed again, “I’m not kidding, don’t touch that.” No problem. I opened my books and got my pen and highlighter out of my bag. “We were supposed to bring a highlighter?” she asked me not even looking up from the bag she was rummaging around in. “No, I just brought one in case.” I answered her but really wanted to knock her precious bottled water off the desk. “Can I have yours?” OK is this chick kidding now or what? I started looking around for some hidden camera, some Punk’d personnel but instead I simply said, “No, sorry, I only have one.” I should have left it at that, but me always having to make a joke added, “Trade you for your water…!” With that she picked up her books and water and moved to the furthest seat away from mine. Guess she can’t take a joke. As we waited for the teacher to set up the dry erase board which he abandoned after three futile attempts, I began to wonder what the hell was in that bottle. I imagined it to be some high priced imported vodka, or some illegal propellant she was going to ignite and turn this tiny conference room into a fire bomb…and then I saw her drink from it. That ruled out the propellant at least.

I turned my attentions to the well dressed, handsome man that sat in the seat ‘water girl’ had abandoned. He smiled, I smiled, he smiled again, ditto ditto ditto….What the hell?! If he was Asian (which he wasn’t) I would have bet we would have still been bowing to each other rather than getting around to karate chopping each other. I wondered where all this smiling was going to lead us. The water girl raised her hand and asked where the bathroom was. The teacher who had finally accomplished arranging his books and was beginning the class told her where it was and she got up taking her coveted water bottle with her. She never returned. Was it something I said?

As the teacher asked us to read along with him I looked down at my feet to see if I had room to stretch my rotten, stiff, left knee out straight before I ended up in traction. I wished I hadn’t. The man in water girl’s seat wore flip flops and toenail polish. Five toes, five colors. Big toe, blue. Little toe, green. And a rainbow in between. Suddenly the stiffness in my knee didn‘t matter as the pain would have been a welcomed reminder that I was indeed still awake and had not fallen asleep during the boring insurance rhetoric. I attempted to read along with the instructor as I repeatedly glanced down at his toes. His right foot had one color at least, white, but they had letters on them and it infuriated me that I was not in a position to read what they said. I dropped my highlighter. Ooops. I bent down and saw that the letter on his big toe was an I but that was all I could see. I was getting distracted and the instructor was way ahead of me at this point and I was lost. I re-read from the book what I missed while reading toes and surprisingly was even able to answer a question he threw at me unexpectedly.

We broke for lunch. The little Spanish girl I met when we first got there leaned over and asked if I wanted to go to the diner with her. I was starving and thrilled to be with someone who as far as I could tell, had nothing painted on her toes and no bottled water. As we walked to the diner I told her about the water girl and the flip flop man. She said she saw water girl in the bathroom even before the class started and she was talking on a cell phone about how bad the weather was in New York. It was sunny, clear and mid 70’s.

On the way back from the diner water girl was outside the classroom still clutching her water bottle. She leered at the two of us and just as I thought we were far enough past her to avoid a confrontation she throws the water bottle at us. It didn’t hit us and it didn’t even open but my little Spanish friend flew into a rage. Suddenly she was yelling and gesturing at water girl who looked calm and quite frankly bored. I took her arm and told her to calm down, that the girl was obviously a kook, and the class was gonna start. Back in our seats we waited for flip flop man to return from lunch as she positioned herself so that as soon as he opened the door she could read his feet. Foot. He came in and sat down beside me again and did his I smile, You smile, I smile, You smile routine. I looked over my shoulder to see if she had been able to see what this guy painstakingly painted on his toes but she shook her head side to side and I knew it was up to me now. I put my bag on the floor between our chairs so that I had reason to bend down several times and attempt a reading. I managed to get another two letters….X an X….maybe this was just some design and not a word after all?? I caught up to the instructor again and decided to concentrate on insurance rather than worry about what design this guy had on his toes. When the class was over my friend reminded me that water girl could be outside waiting for us. We assured each other we had each other’s backs (I felt so…ghetto!) and walked to the parking lot. Thankfully she wasn’t there since me and my posse of one would have been taken down in a heartbeat by water girl. Can’t wait for class tomorrow!