Exposing Your Inattention… Among Other Things

A few decades ago, I was working part-time as an optician at a superstore’s Vision Center. My job was selling eyeglasses and fitting them to faces. I’m not sure why, but we were required to wear white lab coats while working, as were the pharmacy staff… and the guys working at the Photo Center, now that I think of it.

I was dressed in my white lab coat and I had clocked out for the day. My wife had asked me to pick up eggs on the way home, so I was standing in a checkout line, a carton of eggs in my hand, waiting my turn behind an obviously drunk pair of ladies.

One of them pointed me out to the other, who walked up to me.

Lady: *Demanding* “What would you call this thing on my chest?”

She then stretched her elastic tube top out about a foot and pointed at her totally exposed left breast.

Being a nice guy, I took a moment to study the matter and then replied:

Me: “Well, it’s just my opinion, of course, but I’d say it’s a nipple.”

She stared at me while her girlfriend cracked up.

Lady: “No, a**hole, the rash! What is it, and what should I put on it?”

Me: “I am neither a pharmacist nor a pharmacy technician. I work in the Vision Center.”

She just stared at me, blurrily, and then put her boobs away and started yelling for a manager and cops.

I didn’t get into any trouble, of course, but the privilege of listening to her try to explain to a policeman how I had sexually assaulted her by not stopping her from exposing herself in public would have made it worthwhile either way.