It Cannot Get Any Weirder Than This

Yesterday, I was riding the subway to my MRI appointment for my back (not important). While sitting on the subway reading my book (about the fucked up cult Mormons call a “religion”) between the 5 stops it took me to get to my station, an Asian-American woman says to me, “Excuse me, can you please put this on me?” I look at her and she offers to me a tube of Orajel as she pulls down her lower lip to show me a huge cankersore on the inside of her lip. I stare at her for a moment not fully grasping what she just asked me to do. Again she repeats, “Will you put this on for me, I can’t see it?” I stare at her lip, drop my jaw open, and it takes me about 10 seconds to get out the words, “Uh, No.” I turn back and begin to read my book. And again she says, “Well can you please help me and tell me if I’m getting it on there?” She pulls down her lower lip again, tries to point the Orajel tube to her cankersore and says, “Am I getting it??” I look around the subway to notice everyone staring at me, to which I begin to think I was on candid camera. I hesitate for a few seconds wondering what the fuck is going on here, I look at her and say “You’re just about on it, just a little higher,” to which she replies, “Is it coming out?” I say “Not really,” and she says, “Well can you please just do it for me? Please?” I looked at her thinking this has to be a joke. I was literally speechless. She says, “You don’t want to do this for me!?” I look at her dumbfounded and say, “Uh… not really.” She says “Please, it hurts, and I just can’t get to it” and hands the Orajel tube to me. This was quite a predicament for me; everyone on the subway still staring, flabbergasted as I am. I think to myself, this can’t get any more awkward than it already is right now, and so I grab the Orajel tube and say, “Fine, here you go.” I squeeze the tube, and put it on her damn cankersore, hand the tube back, and go back to my reading as though nothing happened. She then says, “Excuse me, I’m sorry to have interrupted you, but thank you.” I stare down at my book and reply, “No problem.” I walk off the subway and think to myself – it cannot get any weirder than this.