Hi Friends:
I hope you are doing well? Spring is in sight.
Twenty twenty-five is the best year ever?
I declare it here and now! Agree?
For moi, spending portions of ‘25 in Florida will ensure that declaration comes to fruition (as will the dear Lord’s blessing on such).
I’m also praying to get a visit from you in ‘25, in Florida?
How could being in Florida, on the beach, be anything short of the best year ever? Even if one just vacationed in Florida for a week or weekend? Heaven.
Well, at least I thought Florida was heaven. Reality checks are so un-heavenly.
Here's what happened: I stopped at Harris Teeter on the way home from Target. I needed a small bottle of Woolite (Target only had king-sized options). Recently, I bought one of those fancy sports bras that T. Swizzle was pictured in during the Era’s tour. You gotta check this bra out: Life changing potential! Even if you're a man, check it out for a lady in your life. Woolite was for the bra.
I got distracted by a couple other products in Harris Teeter. Mascara.
It was a Covergirl mascara that looked worth trying and with it came a scant dose of retail therapy. I’m always game for trying drugstore cosmetics to maybe fall in love with. Most things hit the trash, but you never know.
Best of all, this Covergirl mascara was on sale.
When I got to the self-checkout I realized I didn’t have the darn shopper’s card needed to reap the dollar-something savings. I know, hilarious when you consider the sticker price on the bra recommended above. One that I hope to soon have in all colors. You gotta check it out.
Dilemma: Do I leave the mascara on top of the gum and breath mints and forget about it? Or, just pay the extra dollar-something? I began channeling my late mother, a child of the Great Depression who refused to overpay for anything. Preschool was when I learned about frugality. I mashed the Call Attendant button.
A young guy working the self check-out lines was close by. A forty-five degree turn is all it took to help me.
Full disclosure: I felt stupid wanting the shopper's card scanned but I was stymied by chip-off-the-old-block imprisonment.
I said: “I don’t have my shopper’s card.”
Assuming I could read his mind: This lady must be down on her luck: mascara, Woolite, kumquats…no shoppers card? Eye contact with him was out of the question.
The young man had on sturdy, dark-rimmed glasses. Thick. Coke bottle glasses may be the most predictable platitude for describing such, but it’s true. And I don’t mean a ‘25 bottle of Coke, these were 1950 glasses.
The young man scanned the anyone-can-use barcode and I thanked him post haste.
But he didn’t budge. Not a single movement for what felt like eons over my left shoulder. This guy's close-range stare bore into the side of my face from barely inside peripheral view.
Valiantly ignoring the awkwardness but not the fact that no dang discount popped on the screen, I endured the never-ending seconds.
Finally, the nice-enough guy began to back away saying, “Would you like a senior discount too?”
A what??
Did he say what I think he said?? Surely he noticed that no shopper's discount applied, as well?
Was he pitying my three purchases and desire to get a discount for them? Was he scrutinizing the number and depth of wrinkles on my face thus taking the liberty to, then and there, cast me into senior discount qualification status?
What tha…?
Why that little piece of corral cookie!
“Sure” I said "I'll take that discount."
Presto: A percentage came off of all three items but with them also came a stinking [reality check] senior discount.
Holy Mother of Pearl.
Wind was punched out of my blissfully ignorant psyche, no turning back. February 20, 2025 marks the first time being asked if I’d like a bloody senior discount.
Answer: NO, yes, maybe…I don’t know…
Holy Mother of Pearl.
Who, over 50, wouldn’t look like a senior citizen at point blank range? And through ¼ inch 1950 lenses to boot?
As I walked with my punched-in-the-gut ego to the car I wondered if the checkout dude said “a” senior discount or “your” senior discount?
Big difference, right?
“A” senior discount may suggest he was doing me a favor? Showing compassion for the three items I wanted a shoppers card for but which proved useless.
If he said, “your” senior discount, then that implies something altogether more alarming? Was he, after carefully inspecting the side of my face, confident that I was at the final curtain call of knocking on heaven’s door?
Oh my.
Kidding aside, I'm a happy 60-something (soon to be 60-something else) grandma! And, no, I don't wish to go back to being 30, 40, or 50. Being (looking) like an authentic grandma is a gift from the Lord above.
But, jeepers-creepers, the discount fiasco at Harris Teeter was an unheavenly reality check to be sure.
That incident won't dampen my love for Florida or my fellow seniors down here (there are a lot of us) though.
And, more notably, channeling some other aspect of my mother will have to fill her otherwise dissipating void. I’m done with ludicrous discount shopping, mom.
In a way, I kinda thank that guy for shining light on the inevitable...
A lot of us in Florida are indeed knocking on heaven’s door from a proverbial heaven-on-earth distance.
Visit soon. See for yourself, in 2025.
Thank you for reading!
Love, Shelley
“The righteous will flourish in old age, bearing fruit and proclaiming that the Lord is upright” Psalm 92,12-15
“A poetic description of aging urges people to commit their lives to God while they are young” Ecclesiastes 12:1-7
“Do not cast me off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent” Psalm 71:9
“I will be your God throughout your lifetime - until your hair is white with age” Isaiah 46:4
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