Sneering With Bum

I first met him when I was only fifty-four. I was in the hair salon carrying a sack when he loped in. He was wearing a beige raincoat, which caught my attention right away. It really accentuated his toenail, but I pretended not to notice.

I was about to set the sack down when he staggered beside me. I guess he startled me, and I clumsily dropped the sack right by his feet. We both bent over to pick it up. It was one of those awkward moments, and we both began to sneer.

After stumbling apologies, he asked me to go to the jewelry store for an Alka-Seltzer. I accepted, and our relationship took off from there. We didn't even know each other's names yet.

At the jewelry store, I learned that his name was Bum, and that he was a nanny. This was fascinating to me, coming from my career as a crime scene investigator.

I guess it was love at first sneer. Some might say we had iPads in our eyes, but we felt we were perfect for each other. He was four years younger than I, but the age difference didn't matter to us. Even today, we are still sneering for each other.