A Sticking Feeling

Sometimes I get stuck to things.

I know it’s weird, believe me. I don’t really expect people to even believe me, so I rarely talk about it. When I do tell people, they usually think I mean it in the way it’s meant on those chalky, pastel Valentine’s hearts that say “I’m stuck on you.” I mean it literally though. I really, truly, undeniably do get stuck to things.

Imagine your tongue stuck on a frozen ice tray. It’s kind of like that.

I can feel it whenever it starts to happen. Last week, when I walked out of my apartment I put on my backpack and I immediately felt my skin fuse to the material. I didn’t even have to try to pull it off, I could tell it was stuck. It took well over an hour of concentrated prying to finally get it loose. I’ve had that backpack for eleven years, and it has never done this before. I don’t know, maybe it’s a skin condition.

I can’t just get stuck to anything either. You couldn’t, say, just throw a book at my shoulder and expect it to stick there. I couldn’t just lean up against a parking meter and not be able to move. It’s always something big. Something special.

The problem is usually innocuous, but sometimes it can be so embarrassing. Like this morning. I went to a neighborhood fruit market to pick up some fresh produce. It was all the usual items, apples, pears, a papaya, bananas, an avocado. As I walked toward my street I admired a particularly perfect avocado in my hand. It was smooth and black, and soft enough to leave indentations where my fingers touched its skin. I imagined slicing it. The green and yellow of plant matter, the cool and buttery taste. I thought about it spread across some toast, with cream cheese, some sprouts, and salt and pepper. I opened the plastic bag strapped around my wrist and opened my hand to drop it into the bag, but it didn’t fall. The avocado clung to my palm as though it was glued there. I shook my hand several times and it stayed. I grabbed the avocado with my other hand and began to pull. Not hard enough to damage the beautiful fruit, mind you, but hard enough.

I was standing in the street, shaking my hand violently in a plastic bag, looking intensely frustrated when I looked up and saw Macel. She was watching me. We saw each others’ pupils. She smiled. “What’s wrong?” she asked me. But what could I say? She isn’t a stranger, I see her often on this path, but how do you tell someone that you sometimes stick to things?

“I’m just trying to get something off my hand,” I told her, pulling at the avocado with my hand still inside the bag.

“Can I help?” she asked innocently, walking toward me. There was no avoiding this. She was already looking in the bag.

“I...I...This avocado is stuck to my hand,” I said, and I chuckled a little to show her I wasn’t really angry.

She asked me why it was stuck. Of course. And I looked into her peaceful gaze and told her. I told her all about my problems. Everything from the people who laughed at me in school, to the horrible empty sensation I get when the thing is finally released from my skin.

She laughed softly, and said, “yeah. That happens to me sometimes too.” Her answer rang like church bells in my brain.

She took my hand and rested it in hers. She set another hand on the avocado, pulled it off of my hand, and sat it gently in my plastic bag. “See,” she said, “that wasn’t that hard.” She smiled, and let go of my hand, but my hand didn’t drop back. Our hands were fused together, as fast as Siamese twins.

We’re still stuck together, our hands. We’ve been talking about it all day. And while it isn’t clear to her who is stuck to whom, it is clear to me.

I admit it. I have a sticking problem.