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Ladies

I.

“Hi, how are you today?” I ask this of every customer, except the ones on their phones. For them, I make sure to whisper when I ask “Debit or credit” or say “Here’s your receipt, have a nice day.”

I suppose, for the people waiting in line, this seems very fake, but it’s their choice whether or not to engage. I am interested in hearing, usually. Listening to moms commiserating over having to coordinate Valentine’s parties for two of their kids’ classes at school breaks up the monotony.

This old lady, however, just said, “Not so good,” and in a tone that meant it. I thought she might cry. Her voice trembled a bit with every sentence.

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” I said.

“My husband’s in a nursing home, and I have to decide whether or not to make it permanent.” She started to ramble a little, “He’s been in homes before, but I don’t like the new one he’s in; it’s so far away. He was home yesterday, for a Super Bowl party, but he could barely walk. I just don’t know what to do.”

“This must be so hard for you,” I said.

“It is!” she choked out. “We’ve been married for 56 years.”

We kept repeating ourselves for the rest of the transaction, and I kept feeling grateful there wasn’t a line, that the store was slow for the first time all day, listening to her voice warble and keeping an eye out for tears to dribble down her cheeks.

At the end, I gave her the receipt and her change and told her to have a good day, that I hoped things would get easier for her, and then, maybe the one advantage to being long-torsoed—I leaned over the counter in one easy motion and hugged her. “Oh!” she exclaimed, softly, and shook, before she thanked me and ran out of the store.

II.

There have been several other old ladies of note this week, and yesterday, walking home from work, I figured out how to link them easily, this sad old woman, and the two old ladies who got angry about having to wait in line and then threw their purchases down in disgust when I reminded them they still weren’t in line, and the old lady yesterday who watched me apologize to two straight customers for a problem with the register and then power through ringing up their Valentine’s candy to get them out quickly, said “You carry yourself very well,” and then slipped me a pamphlet about Jesus and the end of the world and told me a smart girl like me should find something interesting in there. (Afterward, I wished desperately one of my managers, M, was in, because she always seems to collect these women too, and the day I finally stopped thinking all of my co-workers hated me was the day she said she’s debated making an identical pamphlet about the apocalypse and subsequent zombie uprising to hand back to these proselytizing women.) There were other ladies too, including this one, who returned today to get cat litter and a chocolate rose, and I wanted to ask her if she was okay, but I realized she didn’t remember standing in the exact same spot a month before and telling me about her ex stalking her, and a regular lady, usually the first customer in the store every day, who always buys a soda and some chips and looks harried, but is the kindest and most understanding customer when I say that the registers are still booting up. There was the lady who bought a soda and forgot it on the counter and never came back, and the old lady who forgot her chicken broth in the same place, and the lady next in line who ran out to the parking lot while I rang up her cards to bring it to her. There was my mother, who I think may have alienated my closest lady co-worker from me by implying I am better at the job than she is, and my lady manager, who spent a half-hour yesterday talking to me while we made balloon bouquets—if we sell the most for Valentine’s Day, we get a pizza party—and that, coupled with moving me to the opening shift, makes me worried that she alienated my other morning co-worker—the lady who used to have the opening shift. In class, there is my teacher, who I can only think to describe as “a tough old broad,” though she is not very old, who read my intro paragraph out loud and told my partner during peer-editing that she could not leave early but I could—though I didn’t, because how awkward would that be, to walk out over an hour early of a three-hour class? There was that editor, the lady behind me, who I thought was maybe 24, but has a sixteen year-old son, and the lady who sits beside me, who rolled her eyes over to my closest competition, a woman actually 24-ish with an eight month-old daughter, and mouthed “I can’t stand her” (and later, “She’s a know-it-all”) and made me feel relieved to not be the only one.

And yesterday, walking home, I knew how to tie it all together, and make it meaningful, but then I walked to the train and saw a hockey game with my elementary school best friend, the lady I see once a month to do fun things with, and forgot, and now this is just a post about ladies, no connecting thread at all.