What’s on my mind? Ffffeefff.
My friend Deb and I went to a play, this week. Beside us sat an elderly woman with a man we correctly assumed to be her spouse. No sooner had the play begun, than we heard “FLICK! FLICK! FLICK!”
It wasn’t occasional. It was constant. It drove me bonkers. Her hand cupped into my ear, Deb whispered her annoyance with the distracting “FLICK! FLICK! FLICK!”
I silently mouthed: “I hear it, too!” With nods and hand signals, we guessed the woman was flicking the cover of her program, perhaps by nervous habit. “She may not realize she’s doing it,” we agreed, saying it was better to stay silent than embarrass her.
“FLICK! FLICK! FLICK!”
Deb shoulder-checked me, rolling her eyes. I gritted my teeth.
“FLICK! FLICK! FLICK!”
During the intermission, I stood up.
“Madam ...” I began. I offered her a grim little smile, as though I were about to ask if there were anything I could do to make the play more to her liking (Cozy pillow? Champagne? Full refund? Be as obsequious as I can?).
“FLICK! FLICK! FLICK!”
The woman looked at me, smiling vacuously.
“FLICK! FLICK! FLICK!”
“Madam ... Would you please stop making that noise!”
Deb gave me the thumbs up.
“I’m not making any noise,” the woman said.
“FLICK! FLICK! FLICK!”
“It’s driving me crazy! It’s driving my friend crazy!”
Finding her courage, Deb bared her teeth: “You are, you are, you are making noise! You’re flicking your %$#@! program!”
The woman’s husband bowed his head in embarrassment. It must be difficult for him, I thought, living with a Flicker.
“It’s me ...” he whispered.
“Tell them, Harold,” she said.
(His name wasn’t Harold. I don’t want to rob him of his dignity, but he occupied seat E5.)
“It’s m’ ffffeefff,” he said.
” Pardon? Pardon???” I asked. ” I can’t hear you when you whisper.”
“It’s his teeth!” boomed his wife.
Head still bowed, he mumbled, sotto voce: “M’ ffffeefff, m’ ffffeefff …”
“It’s his teeth!” his wife yelled.
“It’s his teeth!” I shouted at Deb. Red-faced, she whirled away from me, as though we’d never met. That Deb sure can be touchy.
The elderly gent looked at me, emboldened. In a matter-of-fact kind of way, he said: “I like to click them.”
Oh.
I again became obsequious, as though I were asking if there were anything I could do to make the play more to his liking (Larger teeth? Bigger tongue? Smaller seat widths?).
“No-o-o-o problem!” I said. “It doesn’t bother me at all!”
Deb shifted in her seat, perhaps not trusting her ears.
“Really?” he said, weakly.
“Re-a-lly! Go right ahead!”
I told myself that Deb would get over it. Eventually.
After that, he didn’t make a sound, that dear man. Mostly, he kept his head down during the rest of the play, while I felt deeply sorry to have said a word. I was to blame! It had been the flicker-clicker’s bad luck to have nasty me as his seat mate!
I’ve experienced worse. I once followed another elderly man so eager to take his theater seat that - as he tottered toward his destination - his pants fell down. Not just his pants, but his underpants, too. I was horrified, but said nothing when he cracked up. Or, more precisely, down. Those words, I tactfully left to his wife.
© Nicole Parton, 2019
