Or Men, For That Matter
“I’m addicted to these,” I said. I was referring to the Cotton Candy Grapes the man was ringing up for me. It was still before 9 am on a Sunday, so Target wasn’t crowded yet, and the grapes hadn’t been wiped out. Cotton Candy Grapes are a plump green grape that tastes like cotton candy. I don’t know how they do it, and I wonder who came up with the idea.
I don’t like cotton candy, not for anything other than its texture and how it sort of disintegrates in my mouth. It grosses me out. The flavor, on the other hand, I love: distinct, sweet, and entirely artificial. I love it the same way I love banana Laffy Taffy or anything cake batter or birthday cake flavored.
After I confessed my addiction to the man, he said, “Me too.” Then, maybe as an afterthought, or maybe he wanted to see how I’d react, he said, “Especially with this cavity on my left side here.” And he put the grapes in my bag and pointed to the left side of his jaw.
I chuckled at what I presumed was his joke. “You’re kidding, right?”
He looked at me. He was wearing his red Target-issued polo and a name tag that read Roman. He had short, shaggy brown hair and a fallow face as distinctive as cotton candy: he had droopy brown eyes, and it looked as if something was pulling his skin down toward the ground, something…
