It all began the week before Christmas. I was finally able to get to the store to complete my ever-growing list of groceries needed to complete my ever-growing list of foodstuffs that I will need to make the holiday complete. Almost every day I found another recipe that will add just the right touch to either the Christmas Eve or Christmas Day menu, forget the pre-holiday cookies. The latter has been whittled down to biscotti because they are relatively easy to make and impressive to those who receive them as gifts. Am I too awful to think this?
Overthinking seems to be my super power right now, which is exemplified by this slice of my life at the grocery store.
There are times when you know that you should intervene, that it would be the right thing to do but then …
I noticed that he was having a problem. The elderly gentleman, about the same age as myself, was trying to pick up a cucumber that had escaped from the vegetable bin at Nojaims. Holding on to his cart in which one could easily see his cane, the fellow’s hand was visibly shaking as he pushed himself to stretch a bit further toward the floor so that he could grab the escaped cucumber.
Schooled about right and wrong by take no prisoner nuns at OLPH in Brooklyn, I immediately thought that I should jump in and help … but … well, I remembered that I can no longer jump. Walking has become a feat (not feet) of almost legerdemain for me. I too had a cane stashed in my grocery cart. My mind, or what is left of it, quickly ran over the many ways in which this need to help would play out. The best outcome involved me causing this poor guy to feel overwhelmed by having to be helped by a noticeably overweight old lady with a cane. I do know men who have accumulated quite a few years and they retain the same need to save face as the younger versions.
Another outcome which made me shudder was that as I reached for the offending vegetable, I who am notoriously dizzy would tumble onto the guy causing the shopping carts to careen down the aisle toward the frozen foods while we became a tangled mess of age on the floor. There we would be two old folks on the floor while well-meaning store personnel and shoppers tried to help us as more cucumbers and some loosely organized peppers tumbled off the bins because of the vibrations.
I could ask if the gentleman needed help. Yes, I could do that. He might say, “No, thanks. I’ve got this,” or he might reply in the affirmative which would mean that we would have to negotiate how this help would happen as we blocked the aisle with our deliberations.
Or I could just push by around him as he struggled or make a sharp turn to the right to enter the next aisle. Nothing like ignoring a problem, hoping it would just go away. But there is always the thought of Sister Mary Robert and her ilk to bring right behavior to the issue.
While all of this was filling my brain with “what if’s,’ a little girl, about 6 or 7 years old ran in front of me, picked up the cucumber and gave it to the struggling man who in turn courteously thanked her and her parents.
I just knew that there were those who thought “she (meaning me) should have done something” or, more sadly, have I been relegated to that part of humanity as no longer capable, bordering on the edge of “Poor thing.” Another random thought: Maybe I needed to hydrate so that I could get through the store and purchase the things that I came for. If I could remember them all.
Hmmm. I wonder what I would have done if my brain still worked, or if my cane had a sharp point on the end, sharp enough to stab the escaped vegetable.
