Honk If You Really Like Donuts
Continued from last week
"See that?"
"What?" The woman shifted her chair back slightly. "What the hell was that for?"
"You feel pain, right?"
"Of course I feel pain, you just drove your fricking pen through my hand!"
"And you'd get that seen to, right? By a doctor?"
"I think I may have to, for chrissakes, I bruise easily."
A greasy little nerd with a Powerbook sitting on the couches was the only patron of Starbucks that looked up at the two women, one of whom was talking considerably louder at this stage. The present woman, who we'll call 'Katy' because that was her name, glared over at him, and, for good measure, sprayed a glare in a long, slow arc around the Starbucks.
"Yes, but that's it. If I did something similar to the kid over there," she pointed at the greasy kid with the Powerbook, "he'd probably whine and cry a lot for a little bit, and then get on with things. It would be weeks later, when his hand had gone slightly gangrenous, that he'd go see a doctor. And more likely than not it wouldn't be his initial decision to go. It would only be after someone commented on how disgusting his hand was looking and he should really get that seen to before he'd think of going to a doctor. That, currently, is the difference between men and women. Women notice pain more readily, and get it seen to. Whereas men will suffer through it, to the point of being hospitalized later for something that could have been treated much, much sooner. And simpler."
Katy simply stared at the woman from the future.
"Women, you see, thanks to the natural cycle they go through, with their body, understand their bodies much better than men, who learn, at an early age, to pee standing up, and that is pretty much it for them, bodily functions largely covered. With the advent of man-births, as we call them, and the ability for men to give birth, well, we have noticed that men are also, in the future, exhibiting much more sense when it comes to injury detection."
"And why is this such a big deal? What? Are the hospitals filling up or something?" Katy narrowed her eyes at the woman and held her bruised hand gingerly in her lap. She thought about reaching up to grab her coffee with her good hand, but thought better of it, whilst the woman from the future still held her pen.
"Oh no, nothing like that. The doctors quite enjoy it, in fact. It gives them more time for golf. Most of the time whatever ails them is curable with medicines and ice and off they go, good as new, no nasty major surgery weeks down the line to amputate their hand, for example." The future woman gestured at Katy's hand.
Katy just sort of glared back and her, and, that not being wholly satisfying, glared back over her shoulder at the greasy kid with the Powerbook. "And that's it?" Katy was pissed off at herself for breaking her glare and speaking to the woman, but at the very least she hadn't said it while facing her. Thank heavens for small victories, she thought.
"Well, mostly. One nice upshot of the whole thing, seeing as how men had usurped what had been our own special super powers..."
"Super powers?"
"Yes."
"And what were those?"
"The ability to detect an injury quite early. At a preventative stage." The woman looked at Katy's hand. "Or at least at the stage during which it was eminently treatable and not life-threatening."
"What kind of crap super power is that?"
"Well, that's the good thing about it all. It wasn't a particularly glamourous super power. And when we were suddenly equalled at it by men, well, a lot of effort went into finding out more about what it is that separates women from men."
Katy finally grabbed for her coffee with her good hand. The future woman, seeing her hand coming forward, snatched at her hand, but wasn't quick enough, and the coffee slurped over the lip of the mug and on to Katy's nice white top. Again, she thought, minor victories, even if they come at a cost.
The future woman straightened up in her seat, and reached for her own cup, as if that'd been what she had meant to do all along. "Yes, well. And so, I'm sure you'll be glad to know, we did discover we had other, hidden super powers."
"What, like the ability to detect foul odors before they got really smelly? Color-matching?"
The woman from the future paused for a second, looking Katy up and down. "No. Like the ability to turn invisible."
Which the woman from the future promptly did.
Katy calmly finished off her coffee and when she was finished she walked around the other side of the table, deposited her napkins in the trash bin, and picked up the very nice bag which was made out of a material that very much resembled suede, only it wasn't suede, because they didn't have cows in the future any longer, though Katy couldn't have known that, as the woman never told her that much.
As she passed through the door, which a very nice young man had held for her, and on to the sidewalk, the bag yanked back and forth on her shoulder and then off her shoulder and took off bouncing in mid-air, down the street, until it turned a corner and Katy lost sight of it.
And what no one, not even the young man, still standing half in, half out of Starbucks, staring with an open mouth down the street where the bag had disappeared around the corner, had heard was the gritted whisper of the future woman when the bag had been twirling like some deranged pinwheel in a hurricane on her shoulder : "We can turn invisible, not vanished!"
Katy began carrying a pen that day. Just on the off chance that she might some day meet the nameless woman from the future. And give her a little payback. Which is why, if you're from the future, you should try and be a little more considerate.
disclaimer:
Thanks to L and J for the conversation that inspired this one.
And Baja Fresh, for their Baja Burrito, which also inspired this one, to some degree.
And their nachos.
And that's about it, on the inspiration front.
Unless you count the Perseid meteor shower as a tangential inspiration, as well.
And if you do, well, now you're done.
See you next week. The staff're back from holidays around Ireland and New England and will be bringing presents. Maybe.
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