When I am a Century and a Half

There's this one lady who comes in and she is about a hundred and thirty years old. And she does not annoy me like every other old person does. I think it's because she's so sweet. She keeps me occupied for ages and ages so I can't get anything productive accomplished. She has a broken leg and her niece, wheels her in. Her niece is, like, 70 or something. It's so funny for me to think of nieces as anything other than seven-year-olds. 

Usually older people are grouchy with me. It's not uncommon for someone to tell me that they just want to die already. This Lady, though, everything in the whole world is just lovely to her. When an older person says, "my vision is blurry" and I say, "well, you have macular degeneration and so you will have some spots that are not entirely crisp and clear", they get annoyed that I'm not able to solve their problem. But this one, now, she may forget that I said anything to her 30 seconds ago but at least she is gracious. She asked why her glasses are straight on her face but not straight on the table. When I explained that her face is not shaped like a table, she laughed and laughed and said, "I suppose you're right." No one ever laughs at that! I don't know why I still even use it.

She told me, "You know, I got home and saw that this case that you gave to me has a Made In China sticker on it and that just bothers me. Do you have anything that was made in the United States?" Are you kidding me? The majority of perishable fruit in the grocery store isn't even made in the United States! But I love her so much and so I went scouring our stock looking for something that didn't blatantly advertise that it was made in China. Her niece was, I can tell, embarrassed that I'm being made to go through all of the cupboards but I gave her a wink to tell her that I didn't mind. Most people cancelled their appointments, today, and so I really am free for the next two hours and happy to run around doing unreasonable things for grateful people. 

 I hope that when I'm a century and a half, then I'll look at the world like it's a beautiful, wondrous thing full of stuff that I can't wait to learn. 

This is what I saw when I walked out my front door this morning.