My phone died. I wasn’t doing anything special or naughty—just looking at a picture of a cat on Instagram and the screen froze. Solid. The cat wouldn’t go away. Finally I held the power button down for a slow count of thirty and the screen went blank. But then it wouldn’t power on. I tried everything—this button and that button and two then three buttons at once. Nothing.

I ordered a new phone and then went to my local pharmacy to get my Covid shot. “I hope I’m not late—my phone died this morning,” I told the nurse. She sympathized. “You’re going to feel a little pinch,” she said. They used to say “prick.” Maybe some nurses still do, depending ... I didn’t feel anything.

“Now you wait 15 minutes and then we’ll call you and you can get your card—feel free to do some shopping,” the nurse told me, handing me a coupon for five dollars off.

“But I don’t have a phone,” I reminded her. “I won’t know what time it is and I can’t get a call.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find you,” the nurse said.

So I wandered the aisles looking at Halloween candy and massage wands and reading glasses. The reading glasses I use for my computer, 300 strength, broke the other day, so I thought I might use the five dollar coupon toward a new pair, but Foster Grant skips from 275 to 325. I went back to the Halloween candy. Then, judging I had enough time left in my 15 minutes, I sought out the rest room.

But I went through the wrong door. Some sort of storage room, with lots of empty shelves and a few crates and boxes, and two really cute girls kissing. So into each other they were that they didn’t notice me. Or else they didn’t care. If I’d had my cell phone I would have done a video or at least taken a picture or ten. Instead I just watched. Then the cop came. Then some other stuff happened and then the cop came. It was pretty exciting, very sexy. The cute girls were very thorough. As far as I could tell, nothing to clean up. The girls helped the cop tuck himself back in, and he told them to behave themselves, gave them a sort of salute, and left. I suppose without photographic evidence no one’s going to believe me.

“There you are,” the nurse said. “Your 15 minutes are up.”

END

Reader: Wait. “Some other stuff happened”? What other stuff? C’mon, man, you’re leaving out the good parts.

Author: Well, I was hoping you could imagine them.

Reader: If you’d had the pictures, fine, but you don’t, so you need to tell us more.

Author: What ever happened to less is more?

Reader: It’s a stupid cliché. Like a picture is worth a thousand words. What did the girls look like?

Author: Okay, the one had dark curly hair, like ringlets, and the other had dark straight hair.

Naomi: Shouldn’t you give me a name? I’m Naomi, the one with the ringlets. And my friend, the one I was kissing, the one who was kissing me, is Cammy.

Cammy: Not short for Camelia. Just Cammy.

Reader: What were you doing back there?