Today, Christmas breathing down my neck, I am faced with a trip to the department of motor vehicles, a visit to the Costco warehouse store, a pile of packages to mail, and a long shopping list. I know exactly what kind of day is ahead of me. Of course, I do. I am Eeyore, looking down at the puddles, dragging a black cloud over my head, which, coincidentally or not, matches my black headscarf, the one with silver skeleton heads on it. Hopefully, I will not see anyone I know.
As it turns out, I don’t see anyone I know, but I meet a whole lot of people I don’t know who stun me with their generosity.
My dog is a bear
It starts at the Starbucks drive-through window. I used to wonder who would use a drive-up window to buy expensive coffee, until today when I realize me—me, I would, especially on a day that I don’t want to talk to anyone.
But here is Jessica, cheerful, cheerful Jessica, who while we are waiting for my drink to “come up,” compliments me on how good my dog is. I don’t have a dog, but I do have a small stuffed bear in my back seat, and I feel sort of bad, like I have misrepresented the stuffed bear, and I explain how, well, the dog is really a stuffed bear and that he is here because about seven or eight years ago the grandchildren rescued him from a Goodwill bag— “Grandma, you can’t take Beach Bear to Goodwill”—and now, of course, he is with me for life, assigned to the backseat.
“Wow,” says Jessica. “I have a sock monkey in my car, but no one ever thinks he is real.”
“Really!” I say. “That’s cool.” And I realize she is still holding my coffee, and we are holding up the line by talking and no one is honking.
“Thanks, Jessica,” I say. “Have a great day.” Which I realize, I really, really mean.
Well, whatever, I’ll need the caffeine. The DMV is next.
Put it in park
Of course, there’s a line. When is there not a line at the environmental testing station? I hand over my papers at the first gate and end up in Lane 5 behind five cars, waiting for my red light to turn green.
When it does, I pull forward and a woman greets me and asks me to put the car in park and step out so she can perform the test. Then, suddenly she says, “Wow, in your case, you can put it in neutral.”
I look up; she is smiling. “I have a stick,” she says. “Wow,” I say. “No one has a stick anymore.”
And then we go off, being women of a certain age, about how we love to drive stick and how all kids should learn to drive a manual. And somehow the transactions get done while we are talking. I am smiling when I leave and no one in the line has honked at us to hurry up in all this time.
The warehouse store: it’s a bit of a mystery
So, now I am off to the warehouse store because there is one specific item I need that I can’t find anywhere else. After walking about a half of a mile through the store, I find the box set of books I am looking for—Nancy Drew mysteries—but the cellophane covering is ripped. Eventually, I find an employee and ask if there is another set.
“Everything we have is on the table,” she says. “But, wow, Nancy Drew. I loved those books, especially ‘The Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion.’”
“Oh yes, I remember that one, and I loved ‘The Secret in the Old Clock.’” And then we are off on the Nancy Drew books and Nancy Drew as a heroine and I end up saying, “OK, well, I’m happy to take this set with the torn cellophane.” And I head for the long line.
Gingerbread men make their own beds
A Costco checkout line is inexplicable unless you have stood in one, so we won’t even bother with that, but today it is not so bad because I am reading the titles of the Nancy Drew books and reminiscing. Then the woman in front of me says, “I love your scarf,” and I look up to see she is wearing a Christmas sweater and a Christmas pin and a Christmas scarf and that she reminds me of my mother, and I feel kind of bad about my black skeleton headscarf, so I say, “And I love your scarf.”
She smiles and says, “Do you know how gingerbread men make their beds?” And I say “No,” and she says, “With cookie sheets.” And I laugh and the cashier laughs and everyone around us laughs. Ha, with cookie sheets! Ha, I am out of the line.
Makeup girls
I am a makeup girl, so when my teenage granddaughters want makeup for Christmas, I’m willing to stop at the shiny store dedicated solely to beauty products although it is the type of store I usually visit only on a mentally healthy day. A beautifully made-up young woman asks how she can help. I show her my list and she expertly navigates the overstocked aisles, pointing out sugary lip glosses, eye shadow pallets, sparkly blushes, and frosted nail polish. I buy more than I came in for, seduced by the exquisite packaging and warm scents, and pass my time in the checkout line thinking about when I was fourteen and first fell in love with makeup, specifically the turquoise eyeshadow I met in Drama Club.
The line at the post office
In the week before Christmas, the post office is the place to be. I am a mailer; I mail year round, so I know all three of the women behind the counter today. The line is long, but no one is complaining, which I don’t really understand. It seems to me a lot of people I know complain endlessly about the post office, but no one here is complaining. I do hear the woman behind me, who is elderly, beautifully dressed, but frail and bent, saying to the woman with her, maybe her daughter, “I don’t know, the line seems too long.”
“No,” I say, “They are very efficient. Please, I am in no hurry. Here step ahead of me.”
“Really?” “ Of course,” We go on like that, but she does step ahead of me and then the guys behind me say that was nice of me and include me in their conversation about retirement and motorcycles and post offices. Then I talk to them about my own fraught relationship with retirement, and then we are all the window and the elderly woman before she leaves comes back to hug me and say “Thank you so much. I was getting tired.”
And then I tear up in the post office and all I can think is, “Wow.”
Really. Wow.
