Flowers for Your Dirt Nap?

Yesterday when I went to buy flowers at the Nursery Where Bargains Don’t Abound the slack-jawed teen behind the register asked me if I’d be using my senior discount again today.

“What?” I yelled. I couldn’t help it.

“Sorry” said this sullen child, only he wasn’t. Sorry, that is. The young never are. “You look like this other lady who comes in all the time,” he said, poker-faced.

“I COME IN ALL THE TIME. THAT’S ME! I said in full Jerry Seinfeld holler.

“Whatever,” he sighed with that infuriating look kids sometimes get when they’re seniors in high school. “You losers are already part of my past,” it means.

We completed our transaction. Then “How old are these seniors with their senior discount?” I asked.

“Sixty,” he said.

"Sixty! Do I seem 60 to you?” I yelped again, still channeling Jerry.

Again the expressionless look.

“BECAUSE I WON’T BE SIXTY FOR THREE MORE MONTHS!”

And then, at last, the sun came out: the darn kid smiled and hallelujah I was free to live another day and not wilt on the stem quite yet..