“Hello?”

“Hey.”

“Hey.  What’s up?”

“Is there anything better than witnessing an awkward exchange as a bystander?” 

“Good morning to you too.”

“Sorry.  Good morning.  How are you? So, is there anything more entertaining than watching two strangers have an awkward interaction?” 

“I need a little more context.”

“Right. So, I was at Walgreens and I was in line checking out.”

“Were you getting some pharmaceuticals?”

“No.  I was getting beer.  Walgreens is a very under-rated place to get beer.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“It’s great.  Parking is always close and easy.  Never much of a line.  So much easier than the hassle of going in a grocery store.”

“I’ll have to try it.”

“Please do.  Anyway, I digress.  So, I’m in line, with my beer, waiting to check out.  There is a lady in front of me and the guy checking her out is weird.  He’s really chatty even though she’s not being very responsive.  He’s a bit unkempt and, I don’t know, he’s just weird.”

“I can imagine.”

“Right.  So, like anyone, I’m standing there passively following their conversation, or at least his attempts to have one, and I hear him say, ‘You know this is for little people, right?’.  The lady checking out then says ‘Excuse me?’, but with a heightened tone in her voice.  I look at the counter and he’s scanning some makeup that she’s buying.  I see that the brand name of the make-up is ‘Elf’.”

“Elf?  Like the movie, ‘Elf’?”

“Yes.  I wasn’t familiar with it, but apparently there is a cosmetic brand called ‘Elf’.  Anyway, he repeats himself as though she didn’t hear him and says it louder, ‘You know, this is for little people.’  She doesn’t really react.  She’s just frozen looking back at him.  Then he says, ‘Yeah, I told that joke to a dwarf the other day.  She didn’t think it was funny either’.”

“What?”

“Yeah.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I laughed uncontrollably.  What else could I have done?  It was the funniest, most awkward thing I’d ever witnessed in quite some time.”

“What did they do?”

“No one said anything for a second.  It was just dead for a moment with this awkward joke lingering in the air.  The lady turned to me kind of looking for support, but was disappointed when I started laughing.  The situation was so weird that I couldn’t help it. The guy then goes, ‘At least he thought it was funny’, making a reference to me.  That made me laugh even harder.”

“What did the lady do?”

“For a minute nothing.  She just acted weirded out.  But, she still needed him to finish scanning her things so the awkwardness just hung there.”

“Were there other people besides the three of you?”

“Yeah, there were two more people behind me in line.”

“Did anyone else laugh?”

“No. Just me.  I laughed initially at the situation.  But then, I continued laughing each time I thought about how awkward it was that I was the only one laughing.  And, that cycle kept repeating itself.”

“Was the guy pleased that you liked his joke?”

“Oh yeah.  He loved it.  He tried to make a few more cracks but I didn’t even hear what he said.  I just continued to giggle the whole time he checked me out.  Every time he said a new joke, I didn’t even hear it.  I was still laughing at the prior scene.”

“I’m assuming he appreciated this?”

“Of course.  He thought I was laughing at each new joke and that he was on a roll.  That made me laugh even more.  His confidence grew with each one liner.  It was insane.  I almost peed in my pants.”

“So, how did it conclude?”

“When I was finally leaving he said, ‘There goes my number one fan’.  This set me right back off and I laughed all the way out the door.”

“Wow. That sounds like it was quite the scene.”

“Oh, it was.  It was.”

“I’ll definitely need to try Walgreens.”

“Please do.”