At my little neighborhood market yesterday, there were two guys, maybe in their early twenties, clearly brothers. They were both good-looking and pretty "cool-looking," too—not nerdy. They were there with their grandmother and were helping her shop. It was one of the nicest things I've ever seen. One of the brothers was carrying her pocketbook, even. They'd say, "Nana, do you want some of those Klondike bars you like?" or "Nana, do you need bread?" They held her arm while she walked and didn't seem even remotely impatient. The woman behind me in line and I were marvelling at how heart-warming it was to watch them.
There was only one register open, or else I would have told that woman not to get behind me. In fact, when the register next to us opened up, I suggested that she switch lanes, because something always happens to the line I'm in. She laughed and said she'd chance it. She said, "You don't look like the kind of person that anything bad ever happens to!" (Which is kind of an amazing thing to hear about yourself.) I said, "Well, apparently my cross to bear is bad luck in the market." I explained that I always get the cart with the broken wheel. I also always choose the wrong checkout lane. Either the person ahead of me needs to replace an item or do a price check or pay with rolls of Canadian nickels, or more often, the register tape needs to be changed. I swear I could change the tape in any brand of register in use in this state; that's how many times I've watched it being changed. The woman behind me laughed, and then, sure enough, the cashier said she had to change the register tape. It was a great moment, because the woman just stared in amazement. I smiled and said, "I no longer even think about it. It just happens, and that's the way my life is. It could be something worse; this I can handle." She was flabbergasted.
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