There used to be one of those warehouse-type food marts near my house. The kind where they just leave the merchandise on pallets, and you never know what (if anything) they will have in stock. The sort of place where you bag your own stuff. They have since closed up shop, but I used to go there every so often because they had a not-bad meat department. Anyway, I was there to pick up some sausage (the secret ingredient to my special lasagne) when this little ancedote occured, and it was so good, and I remember it so well, I thought I’d share.
I had been picking over the rather wilted produce when I happened to notice a old man slowly making his way along the dairy/juice case. Something about him reminded me of my Grandpa, so I idly watched him as he shopped. He was wearing a buffalo plaid shirt, and he had his cane tucked up into the cart, like a lot of old folks do. Let’s call him Fred. Fred stopped in front of the orange juice, and slowly, painstakingly picked out a carton and equally slowly put it in the top shelf part of his cart. Then he turned back to the juice, and was starting the whole process over again, when zip! From out of nowhere another old man came barreling past with his shopping cart, snagged the juice carton from Fred’s cart and took off! Now, having witnessed this whole scene, I was more than a little amused, and flabbergasted. But that was nothing compared to how poor Fred felt. He slowly turned back with another carton, and put it in his cart. And stared. And stared. You could just see him thinking, “Now where in blazes did that juice go? I did put one in there, didn’t I? Yes, yes, I’m sure I did. Didn’t I?” At this point he started looking all around, at the floor, in the bottom of his cart, no, no juice. No juice. Fred kept staring for awhile, then he shrugged and slowly turned back to the case, and this time he had to almost put his head into the cooler shelves to get to the cartons. Stock was always low in that store. As soon as he was nearly swallowed by the shelves, zip! Here came the old guy again! Zoom! Snatched juice! Zoom! Gone! And Fred slowly emerged from the shelf, turned around. And dropped his juice carton.
I probably should have stayed to see the conclusion of that, but I left. I had been staring for far too long, I needed to get home, and I was really afraid of seeing a fight break out.
I still think about Fred sometimes though. I hope when he went home and told his wife about the disappearing orange juice, she believed him, and didn’t just sigh and say; “Poor Fred. I think he’s getting Alzheimer’s.”
