Regarding People

May We All Be This With It When We Reach Our 70s

/ Ally Bean / 17 Comments

“I wore rouge today.”

I was standing in the personal care aisle at Kroger.  I wanted to buy some hair mousse, which is in a white container, and is on the shelf about ankle height, near the end of the aisle, on the left.

“Or I guess they call it blush now.”

In front of me was a woman, late-70s, with a coupon in her hand.  She and her cart were blocking my path– not because she was careless, but because shoppers and boxes of product yet to be stocked crowded the aisle.

“I have on mascara, too.”

She batted her eyes at me so I could see her blackened eyelashes behind her thick eyeglass lenses.

I smiled and said, “It looks nice.  I don’t have any on today.”  I batted my eyes back at her.

This made her smile.

“I don’t usually wear any, but I had to go somewhere special.  I went to lunch with a friend and there were men there.”

I smiled at her, nodded my head– and tried to casually, gracefully lean over to the left, reach around her cart and grab my mousse.

It was not meant to be.

“I’m sorry I’m in your way here.  But I have this coupon for $2.00 off and I can’t find the right product.”

I could see her predicament, the hair care line she was looking for had 4 different manifestations of their products, all in different colored bottles.

So I waited.  No rush really.

“It was a free lunch at Barrington Manor.  You know that place?  It’s assisted living for old people.  I’m not ready for that place yet.”

I told her that I knew where it was, in a fancy part of town.

“They had a make-up stylist after lunch who showed us how to wear make-up now that we’re senior citizens.  I didn’t have him do mine, but I asked questions.”

{ silence as she eyeballed the shelves  }

“And they gave us a make-up bag filled with $37.00 worth of free make-up.  FREE.”

{ big smile as she continued to look for the hair care product }

“Thirty-seven dollars!”

After about 30 seconds she found what she wanted to buy, then turned to me with her coupon and her product.

“This is right, isn’t it?  For the $2.00 off.  Like on the coupon.”

I looked at what she had picked up and pointed out that the words on her coupon were the same as the words on the bottle.

“Well, I hope I can read these words,” she said.  “I taught reading for years.  That’s what I did.  Read. Words.”

And with a chuckle and a “thank you” she moved on, leaving me to grab my hair mousse off the shelf and to reflect upon what it means to age stylishly while retaining your sense of humor.

May we all be so cheerful, curious and coherent when we reach her age.

Amen.

A Summer Afternoon At Home: Rocket Pays Gizzard

/ Ally Bean / 17 Comments

Sitting on the screened-in porch.  Reading a magazine.  Sipping an iced coffee.  Late afternoon.

Summer is all around me.

In the distance across the ravine hidden behind the trees I hear kids playing outside.  They have a trampoline over there–  and they play all sorts of “ball” sports, like football or softball or basketball.

These kids, who are around 8-10 years old, are a happy bunch.  Boisterous.

And supportive of each other.  I’ll hear some of them encouraging the other ones with “good job” and “awesome.”

There’s rarely an argument.

So, when I become aware of a lull in the kid noise, my ears perk up.

What is this, I think.  Not the usual light-hearted chatter.  Is there a problem over there in kid-topia?

As if on cue I hear one loud little voice yelling: “Rocket pays gizzard. Rocket. Pays. Gizzard. ROCKET PAYS GIZZARD.”

This child is insistent.

All sorts of other kid voices yell back at him: “That’s not right.”

Then silence.  Nary a sound.

Of course now I need to know what they’re up to, so I wait to hear what they will be say next– and much to my surprise I hear an adult voice.

An adult who is laughing while trying to speak.

An adult who has decided to intervene to keep things rolling along smoothly.

An adult who is correcting the kids who are trying to play…

{Answer in comments below.}

“If This Is Correct, Press 1”

/ Ally Bean / 24 Comments

I’m in awe of this woman.  I don’t know who she is, but I would not be so gracious under similar circumstances.

Because what happened must happen to her, and her family, almost daily.  And only a bunch of saints could be this cheerful about the mistake I made.

An honest mistake, but a stupid one.

~ • ~

You see, on Sunday morning around 7:00 a.m. I decided to call the automated Kroger pharmacy line to refill my prescription.  I was out of Restasis, my favorite eye drops ever.

Being half awake + a bit blurry-eyed [see previous sentence] I goofed while dialing the phone for the pharmacy.  Instead of getting the “Hello. Thank you for calling your Kroger pharmacy.” message, I got a real person whose home I’d just called.

The woman who answered said your basic “Hello!” then heard me babble: “Oh no. I dialed wrong. Oh dear. Sorry to have bothered you this early. On Sunday. Oh my.”

And without missing a beat this polite woman said: “Trying to reach Kroger pharmacy?”

~ • ~

I answered, in a most pathetic voice: “Yes.”

All I heard on the other end of the line was her laugh and then she said: “Our phone number is close to theirs. You just misdialed. Try again. It happens here all the time.”

Grateful to be talking with someone who was not yelling at me for waking him or her up early on a weekend morning, I said: “Thank you. Sorry to have bothered you.”

Then with another laugh I heard her say: “No problem. Bye, bye!”

And so it came to be that on Sunday morning I spoke with a saint.  I now have proof that they walk and talk among us.

Hallelujah & Amen.

A Report From The Sidelines Re: Neighbor Vs. Birds

/ Ally Bean / 33 Comments

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 { Image Source }

[Note to readers: we live in a neighborhood with homes built on wooded ravine lots.  With many trees.  In which birds build nests, as they are wont to do.  These are facts.]

• • •

The neighbor woman who lives behind us has upped her anti-bird campaign.  She’s still out to chase all the birds away from her property, but she has a new tactic.

Now, in addition to her shouting and noise-making, she has begun to place bright shiny silver & red metallic streamers in her trees.

• • •

She wanders around her backyard throwing these streamers up into the air near tree branches.  Then when a streamer gets caught on a tree branch she loosely ties it to the branch, leaving yards of streamer fluttering in the wind.

This means that when the sun shines and hits the moving streamers, her backyard has bright lights randomly twinkling.  It reminds me of an old-fashioned used car lot, which I guess she thinks is a turn-off for birds.

• • •

I find this new behavior alternately entertaining or annoying.

What entertains me is that her neighbors on the property immediately beside her have put a large bird feeder on a shepherd’s hook.  They’ve positioned the shepherd’s hook in such a way that she’ll see the bird feeder ever time she steps outside onto her deck, but they cannot see it from their deck.

Don’t you just love passive-aggressive behavior?

• • •

However, what annoys me is that when the streamers are twinkling their brightest the light from them is strong enough to be noticed on our TV screen.  Inside the house.  Across the ravine.

Meaning that if we happen to be watching something on TV, our show has little sparkly red dots of color superimposed on it.  It’s kind of like stroking out without going to the bother of having a stroke.

Now how strange is that?