Thumbnail Clippings: Sharon's doppleganger, Uncle Frot and shopping mall bumper pool

 

I don't have enough material for a sketch, a vignette or even an interesting doodle, but I did dream that I briefly bumped into Sharon last night, so here is my thumbnail. Actually, it wasn't her but a ringer. In fact, they were so alike that if I'd gone out shopping with one and wound up taking the other home by mistake, I doubt I'd have caught the error.

I was in a busy shopping mall, and bumping into people wasn't uncommon. People were accustomed to getting bumped into, grabbed onto or brushed up against without so much as a "pardon me, ma'am" or "excuse me."  It was literally that crowded. A frottagist's paradise.

Time stood still as I first caught sight of Sharon's double.  Her hair was long, flaxen and wavy, dirty brown streaked with sun bleached highlights, and her eyes were a laughing bright baby blue. She was wearing a faded beige flannel overshirt and blue jeans that were frayed around the edges.

"Hey, baby," I said casually as I grabbed her shirtsleeves with both hands and gave her arms a familiar squeeze.

She looked at me with a saucy look that said, "I know you're a stranger, and I'm not who you think I am, but I'll play along." She didn't actually say that, but I got the vibe that she was OK with being mistaken for my wife or lover. 

I didn't get to take her home, however. It was a fast moving mall, and I barely had time to lock eyes with her and give her a quick greeting before we were each swept away in different directions by the crowd surge. 

Elsewhere in the mall, I saw Lance Matthysen posting up in a furniture store. His game was to sprawl out on a recliner with arms and legs akimbo, draping himself over the arms of the chair, like a giant spider waiting for prey to fall into his lap. But Lance wasn't waiting for dopplegangers of long lost loves. He was waiting for kids. Lance was a pedophile.

"What'cha doing, Uncle Frot?" I asked maliciously. I was onto him.

He glared at me, trying to silence me with an icy stare. It didn't work, and I pressed him further.

"Cop any good feels lately, Uncle Pedo?" I pushed the boundaries of teasing past their limits.

Jennifer Anniston looked up from her cell phone, surprised to hear such talk. Apparently, she and Lance, along with the rest of the furniture store crowd, were just about to play a game together, one in which everyone would seal their cellphones in old cassette tape cases for a day, thus preventing any phone usage. It was some kind of "Wayback Wednesday" or "Throwback Thursday" type of game, where use of pre-millennial tech was prohibited.

I got the impression that I was spoiling the party, so I stifled the urge to comment further. I left the furniture store trolls to go about their business, and I rejoined the giant crowd out in the mall, hoping to perhaps bump into Sharon again. I knew it wasn't her, exactly, but I didn't care. If she was game, so was I.

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Once again, I awoke at 7:44 and it is a Saturday. Maybe I'll harass the cats with my new robot vacuum while I cook breakfast and make my coffee.