Cujo and The Girl Scout

I knew something was up. But what?

It was an exceptionally beautiful day. Soft and golden and all fuzzy around the edges, the unseasonable warmth was a welcome guest as it melted the vestiges of last week's snowstorm.

Why then did I feel nervous and short tempered, behave aggressively in traffic and feel like bursting into tears when "Uptown Girl" started playing on the radio.

While I am not a huge fan of that song, it's certainly not that bad.

Why, as the shadows, in  deepening shades of mauve and gray, draped themselves around the shoulders of my well-meaning little town did I very nearly start a brawl with a girl scout no older than 11 or 12 as she sat at a table at our local polling place and asked me if I wanted to buy cookies to help support her troop?

Happy, patriotic and innocent.

So what that she asked me once on the way in and again on the way out? The girl scouts do good things and help make the world a better place. 

And why am I getting all angry again now just remembering it?

Why was I so sure she was trying to mess with me instead of just realizing that she didn't remember that she'd already asked me once?

And why didn't I just ignore her instead of snarling, "Didn't I tell you I didn't want any cookies?"

Chapter 13: How to deal with the insane

Why did it get to the point where Seth had to dig his fingers into my arm to prevent me from yelling, "Hey, you want a piece of me?" at the happy little girl in her little green vest.

Was it the vest? Do I hate vests? The color green? Maybe it was the sash? Or the little hat and badges?

What was happening??

Why did I then holler at Seth in the car because he didn't agree that the little girl scout was trying to murder me by giving me the hard sell for something that would clog my arteries and cause premature dementia before I moldered away, alone and restrained, in a home reserved specifically for mean bitches who yell at Girl Scouts?

And then, mid-yell, I saw it. Up in the sky. 

The moon was just about full.

And Susan Says came dangerously close to joining the ranks of irrational lunatics who do bodily harm to themselves or others and flood into emergency rooms every month to have topical antibiotic applied to their wounds. It's no joke that people go nutso during a full moon.

Me, leaving town.

Had the confrontation with the girl scout (words I never thought I would ever type) gone on a millisecond longer, I would have had little choice but to leave town under the cover of night, never to return.

People simply do not act like that around here. Thank God.

I apologize to girl scouts everywhere and will be making a charitable donation to GSA as soon as the straitjacket comes off.

The actual full moon is tonight. Wish Seth luck.

        Come to think of it, the expression on Christie's face   while she's "dancing" might make anyone cry.