Tuesday April 9, 2013
The elderly shopper
IDIOMANIA
By OH TEIK THEAM
A YOUNG man in a supermarket notices that an old woman is following him around. He walks to the next aisle, turns his head to have a look, and there she is – just a few yards behind him, with the handles of her shopping basket resting on her arm.
Just before he reaches the checkout, she quickens her steps and manages to joggle his arm and buttonhole him.
“Excuse me,” she says, a thin smile softening the gravity of her face. “Please don’t think that I am one brick short of a full load, following you wherever you walk. I’m actually a shrinking violet who shuns the society of others, but I just have to let you know that you look so much like my only son, who passed away in a road accident last year. The resemblance is uncanny, right down to the easy-going gait.”
“I am sorry for your loss,” he says, more in politeness than solicitude.
She answers him with a bare nod, and then inclines her head to one side, as though thinking that the stranger in front of her resembles her son more when seen from a different angle.
“I hope I’m not bending your ears with all this silly talk,” she continues, with a smile. “We are ships that pass in the night, but if you call out ‘I’ll be seeing you, Mum’ as I leave this building, you’d make an old widow very happy. I’ll appreciate the abiding memory of your kindness.”
The old woman proceeds through the checkout, and as she reaches the entrance, the young man calls out, “I’ll be seeing you, Mum.”
Happy as a clam at high tide, she wheels around and waves to him with a smile brighter than the last.
The young man is glad to have brought a ray of sunshine to a stranger. He places his items on the counter, and the pretty cashier rings them up.
“Two hundred dollars and eighty-five cents,” she says.
“What?” he says, his monosyllabic utterance bespeaking a curious mixture of irritation and incredulity. “I only bought a few things.”
“I can see that,” she says, her face innocent of any expression, “but your mother said you’d pay for her purchases.”
Buttonhole: To detain someone in conversation, as if by holding on to his or her outer garments.
One brick short of a full load: Mentally unsound, stupid or eccentric.
Shrinking violet: An extremely shy person.
Pass away: To die.
Solicitude: A state of being concerned and anxious.
Bend someone’s ears: To talk to someone tediously.
Ships that pass in the night: Strangers who meet once and are unlikely to meet again.
I’ll be seeing you/See you: Goodbye.
Happy as a clam (at high tide): Very happy or delighted.
A ray of sunshine: Someone or something that makes a person happy.
After retiring from handling numbers at the bank, the writer now moves to new writing ‘destinations’ using GPS (grammar, punctuation, style).
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