Sandy's Say: Pensioners’ Day
“I don’t have an ordinary leg of lamb today, Arthur,” the butcher said, “but I do have a rolled, deboned one instead. Would you like it?”
“No lad,” replied Arthur, “if I’ve learnt anything in seventy years of marriage it is that I’m not qualified to make such a decision.”
Good-humoured Sandy James finds that pensioners’ day in her local supermarket is more entertaining than you might expect.
To read more of Sandy's satisfying column please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/sandys_say/
Having a male adolescent in the house, I am obliged to frequent the supermarket almost daily. This is what happens when someone in the family consumes their body weight in food each day. We didn’t think it at the time, but thank goodness Mother Nature stopped us at one child.
As soon as I arrived at the shops yesterday, I could see, from all the mini coaches parked out front, that it was Pensioners’ Shopping Day – the first Thursday of every month. Around here the older folk are bussed in from the local retirement homes on this day and one has to graciously accept that there will be an inevitable change of pace. There is no point in fighting it.
For starters, one cannot push rudely past all the Zimmer frames as the elderly crowd the ramp which leads up to the supermarket entrance. The walking frames and wheelchairs tend to block the narrow aisles and many is the time I am stopped to help read the fine print on a label or reach something on a higher shelf. It is the one day of the month when my middle-aged body feels relatively young.
I was standing in the queue at the meat counter where a sprightly, older man was cracking jokes with the butcher.
“I don’t have an ordinary leg of lamb today, Arthur,” the butcher said, “but I do have a rolled, deboned one instead. Would you like it?”
“No lad,” replied Arthur, “if I’ve learnt anything in seventy years of marriage it is that I’m not qualified to make such a decision.”
When Arthur had left the counter, I said to the butcher, “Seventy years of marriage! Just how old is he?”
“He’s doing extremely well for 93, isn’t he,” replied the butcher. “He keeps young by swimming every day in the pool at the retirement village.”
“He’s not so funny when he dive bombs us during our aqua aerobics class,” muttered the grumpy woman next to me.
Further on, I came across a couple holding hands as they shuffled their way slowly down the aisle.
“Aah,” I said, “I do hope that my husband and I are still holding hands when we’re your age. I think it’s sweet.”
I had my illusion quickly shattered when the man replied, “Oh no, it is not as it seems. This is the only way that I can be sure not to lose her.”
To my surprise I spotted my sister at the opposite end of the following aisle. She was, coincidentally, doing her groceries at the same time. She had my toddler nephew with her and when he saw me he began to run down the aisle towards me. I squatted down to his level and opened my arms wide.
“Hello, my sweetheart!” I called out to him.
An elderly man, who was between us further up the aisle, looked hastily behind himself.
“Oh,” he said in disappointment as he saw my nephew, “I thought that my luck had changed there for a moment.”
At the checkout I was stuck behind a woman organizing a home delivery. I know that this can take a tediously long time so when I saw a pensioner, with only a few items, join my queue I said to him, “This could take some time. It’s a home delivery.”
“Eee,” he moaned as he battled onto the small seat on his walker, “I wish that someone would deliver ME home.”
Pensioners’ Day may be slower than usual but it is unexpectedly entertaining.
