Guilty-as-charged

—“You have pretty eyes,” I told a young checkout girl at my supermarket.
“Why thank you!” she gushed.
“I’m not supposed to tell you that!” I said.
“If some guy told me I had pretty eyes, I’d get out my Taser,” a lady-friend told me.
“I been told saying you have pretty eyes is a FLIRT,” I said to her.
“Yes, but it’s not intended as ‘how ‘bout it honey’,” I thought to myself.
A lot of preliminary yammering proceeded “you have pretty eyes.”
“Hi, how are you?” the girl chirped as I slapped groceries on her chute.
“Not much here,” I responded. Only two mouthwashes and my Egg-Beaters.
I walked toward the end of her chute, and she returned my keys. My store savings-tag is with my keys.
“Hello-Hello,” I said, as I inserted my card into their chip-reader.
“What?” the girl asked. A large clear-plastic sheet separated her from me — it impedes communication.
“Hello again,” I said.
Guilty-as-charged. Our eyes were meeting.
I said something else; suckered in by our eye-contact.
All my life I avoided eye-contact. Now I find it pleasant!
“What?” she asked again, looking right at me.
I admit I was wallowing in it. Eye-contact with a cutie is such fun!
“It’s these masks,” I said. “They force us to notice eyes.
“Dare I say this?” Ulp! “You have pretty eyes!”
And I didn’t get tased.
I bet that girl tells her cohorts about how some weird geezer told her she had pretty eyes.
Somebody had to tell her, and it was me.
So far only one strike-out among multiple contacts. And with that girl I was lying.