Boy, Interrupted

Title: Boy, Interrupted. Based on a true story.

Date: Today
Time: Approximately 4:30pm
Location: Driving from Bed Bath & Beyond, en route to Target
Driver: Katie, wearing sunglasses, a frown, and shoes that started out comfy but are now painful
Passenger: Nick, general direction-giver, human GPS, and patient boyfriend

Background: Nick has a cold. A bad, bad cold. Being the lovely thoughtful person that I am, I dragged him out to buy a knife block set and spend hours wandering stores. This is us driving out of the parking lot by the mall.

* * *
Katie, peering around to make sure all stupid squishable pedestrians have vacated the vicinity, finally turns attention to sick boyfriend who has been quieter and quieter.

"How are you feeling?" I ask, glancing over.

"Crappy," sick boyfriend starts, turning towards me. "I'm pretty sure I have a fever, my throat hurts, I keep sneezing, and my nose is a faucet."

"You poor thing!" I nod sympathetically, patting his knee.

He continues, "I'm pretty sure my leg fell off back in the cutlery section of Bed Bath & Beyond, I'm seeing quadruple, and --"

"CRAP! NICK, DO I TURN RIGHT? Shit! I'm turning right. Was that right? Should I have gone straight?"

Nick gives me a calm, patient stare. The way you would look at someone who has traumatically lost their sanity and you feel pity and compassion for them, and no matter what they do you will never lose your temper because that would be like shouting at a dumb dog.

"Katie, open your eyes." He waits while I comply. "Turn left here. Now go straight. Move into the left lane. Good. Go straight again. Now left, straight, then turn right here and now you should know where we are."

I wipe the sweat off my forehead dramatically. "Phew! Good thing I have you!"

You can practically hear his eyes rolling.

I glance hopefully towards sick boyfriend. "So, sweetie, what were you saying about how you were feeling?"

"Nope. Forget it. I'm not gonna talk to you anymore. You don't listen anyways."

* * *

The End