Tiny Joys #4: Grocery carts, good laughs, and our mother-in-laws
How a random aisle chat turned into a tribute
Have you ever noticed that a lot of people leave their manners at the door when they enter a grocery store? I wonder why that is?
I think grocery stores are where humans are on full display. Every emotion imaginable: cheerful, indignant, rude, polite, impatient. You name it — we’ve seen it, felt it, or been it.
To me, grocery stores offer tiny chances to show up a little better. Which I think is why I love writing about them.
As I enter the store, I’m in good spirits – whew – that isn’t always the case when I shop. I’m ashamed to say. Sometimes I’m that person who leaves their manners at the door. Bad Debbie!
It’s a pretty busy Saturday morning and I keep bumping into the same woman — a friendly older lady who laughs every time we collide. Which seems to happen in every single aisle.
As we bump carts for, like, the third time, she takes the time to tell me a funny story about her mother-in-law. Who she just adored. But who turned into a different person whenever they went grocery shopping.
Why? Well apparently she would always leave her cart in the middle of the aisle while she shopped the entire aisle from end to end.
She tried to reason with her. But have you ever tried to tell a very senior person (not like me-senior – but senior-senior) not to do something? Yeah, it never works.
She eventually had to TELL her husband that he was now on grocery duty. She just couldn’t handle it anymore. She’d rather do anything than that - like clean her toilets! I laughed.
Of course it reminded me of one of my own mother-in-law stories — and because I love telling stories, I couldn’t resist. You know, to make her feel better – so she wouldn’t think she was alone.
Winnie was sweet, gentle, kind and usually considerate of others. But sometimes, she sure did some crazy shit!
Would she listen to me? No! She was a senior-senior, don’t you know.
‘Imagine this’, I say to this happy shopper, ‘we would get off an escalator and Winnie would stop dead. Every. Single. Time. Wouldn’t matter how many times I’d pick her up and move her forward. Or try to reason with her. Or joke about it. Nothing worked. She was oblivious.
She thought it was ok to stand right there. At the top of the escalator. To think about where she would like to go. No action. Just thinking.
In the meantime, people are bunching up on the top of the escalator with nowhere to go.’
Oblivious.
We realized that our lovely mother-in-laws were senior-seniors. They operated under their own set of rules. And they preferred not to let us know what those rules were. Probably because they secretly enjoyed changing the rules to suit themselves. Sneaky senior-seniors!
We are now both laughing in the middle of the aisle. Probably annoying other shoppers. Oh oh, I wonder if they consider us one of those ‘senior-seniors’ who are oblivious.
‘Did we just turn into our mother-in-laws?’ I ask.
This makes us laugh even more.
And then I do a little sing-song…
‘We are the daughter-in-laws, my friends.
And we’ll keep on laughing ‘til the end
We are the daughter-in-laws’
Oh. My. Goodness. We have got to get control.
Finally we bid each other adieu. Ha, when have I ever had the chance to use that expression - bid adieu!
So, my tiny joy – reminiscing and laughing at our shared frustrations with our beloved mother-in-laws, without malice. Just love! And laughs!
Thanks Winnie for the memories! Even the bat shit crazy ones!
Tiny joy!
Lots of laughs!
Big love!
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