They also had little stone sculptures of baby heads. It was a weird place.

In New Paltz with Sierra and Marissa we go into a store that sells small hand soaps in the shape of small hands.

“That is the creepiest effing thing I have ever seen,” I say, gaping down at them, arranged in a ghoulish little formation on a table with their tiny fingers splayed. I’m not particularly squeamish about stuff like that–my sense of humor is frankly tasteless a good portion of the time–but Jesus. It looks like a dozen waxen babies have been tortured in an Iraqi prison camp. I absolutely one hundred percent cannot stop staring.

“It’s a joke,” the shopkeeper  tells me, like maybe I just don’t understand the pun. He rubs his palms together as if he’s washing. “Hand soaps?”

“I get it,” I tell him, and we stare at each other awkwardly for a moment. He’s still rubbing his hands together, and now it’s sort of sinister-like, as if maybe he wants to make soap out of me. “Thanks.”

“You get it? Because–”

“Yup.”

Outside, we cannot stop laughing. I dig my gloves out of my purse.