Friendly Neighbors

There's only one door through which you can enter our apartment building, and it's next door to Nature's Medicine Shoppe.

Nature's Medicine Shoppe is a curious corner establishment. It's open strange hours, I've seen a total of one (potential) walk-in customer, and it's not like we live on a street with a ton of non-resident foot traffic. In the window, the proprietor has taped up a few signs created in Microsoft Word and printed with what seems to be a dot-matrix printer. My favorite is an advertisement for Gigolo's Delight, a combination of natural male enhancement herbs.

The owner has taken a liking to me.

He introduced himself shortly after we moved in, one day helping me back my car out into busy traffic. His name is Cornell, and his "puppy," a year-old pit bull named Paz (pronounced "Paws," but Cornell was careful to spell her name to me), is his constant companion. Cornell gave me a home-made brochure and told me I should come by the store sometime.

That put me in an awkward position. First of all, I was fairly certain I didn't want to buy anything inside. I'm not really a natural sort of girl. I like my artificial scents and fancy packaging. That's how you know stuff works.

Also, let's be clear: It would take someone pretty naive to not suspect this whole operation is a drug front. I mean, maybe it's not. But...I'm pretty sure it is. And I don't smoke. Or, you know, do anything else. And I kind of thought that, once inside, I'd have to have that discussion with Cornell. And then I'd probably have to buy some seaweed soap or something.

But I pass by Cornell's door at least a few times a day, and he always yells out a hello and tells me I should come in, and I always have an excuse not to. In fact, I usually pick up my pace on the street and hustle inside, like I have somewhere to be. But a few weeks ago, I finally agreed to go inside.

I was, once again, formally introduced to Paz, and taken on a tour of the store. I spent most of my time inside admiring a fountain that Cornell had rescued from the street and rehabilitated. I thought that maybe Cornell was a little bit like my grandpa, who was prone to doing stuff like that. I thought maybe we'd have a nice, neighborly relationship.

His products don't seem to be anything too out of the ordinary, with the possible exception of cannabis-scented incense. Adam and I have talked this over, and have concluded that the only logical use for it is to light up when any authority shows up: "Oh, you must just be smelling my pot-scented air freshener."

Cornell also took my visit as an opportunity to clarify that most of his business is mail-order.

So I left feeling like my commitment to my neighbor had been fulfilled. We had a nice conversation, I knew the age of his dog, and I think I had made it pretty clear that I didn't have any express interest in any of his fertility herbs. Since then, we've had that nice rapport you have when you walk past your neighbors--"Hey! HowareyouyeahI'mgood, good, see you later!"--and don't necessarily need to stop to finish saying everything you need to before you reach your front door or traffic drowns you out.

But then last week I was returning home from a walk when Cornell yelled out, "Hey! Come spend some change in my store!" I thought maybe I had misunderstood him, so I said, "What?" and wandered over.

Cornell takes me by the hand, kisses my cheek and leads me inside the store, Paz bouncing on me the whole way, and says again, "Spend some change!" He put me in the center of the store, facing the only wall display, and pondered in what way I could spend my change. The center section of the wall is filled with medicinal herbs, which he declared I was too young to need. The right-hand side is full of incense, and there's not a single thing about my appearance that would allow anyone to suspect I'd like some incense.

Then again, the left-hand side of the wall is full of something else I wouldn't peg me as wanting, and that's oil.

Cornell got pretty excited as he pondered his oil options for me. He told me to hold out my hand, which I did--with my keys clutched in them. He took the keys from me and poured a quarter-sized amount of oil into my paw. I said, "Now what?"...and as soon as I asked, I realized I had made a huge mistake. I frantically started rubbing my hands together as he cried, "Put it in your hair!" I giggled and put some on my forearm--you know, where I could scrub it off with Liquid Dial later. But he kept kind of chanting, "Hair! Hair!" and finally, despite the fact that I have the kind of hair that tends to look greasy ANYWAY about 12 hours after a wash, I kind of swiped it on a chunk of hair at the very back of my head, as far from my scalp as I could manage.

Then I got the hell out of there, muttering something about how I had to see how it smelled a couple of hours from now, like it was an eau d'toilet we were talking about.

Adam was home when I got there, but I beelined for the bathroom and the chemical-laden, anti-bacterial cleansing agents. I scrubbed and scrubbed, but that smell would not come off me. And, of course, it was in my hair, which was a whole other issue. By the time I dejectedly plopped down onto the couch in a cloud of patchouli and explained what had happened, Adam was practically in hysterics, and pointed out the ONE THING I should have said to Cornell:

"Don't you know I don't have black girl hair?"