Cryin'

Make of this what you will: Once, way, way back I was perusing the produce  at the grocery store and came upon a vegetable I did not recognize.“What’s this funny-looking stuff?” I asked an older man who put on such a mad face I felt like his kid coming home with a disappointing report card. “They’re beets!” he snapped. “What, you never saw beets before?”Then he hurried  away in case such stupidity might be catching.“Oh! I… I… I.. just didn’t know,” I called after him. “I guess we always had beets in a can! I‘m sorry!” Then – maybe he could tell he had me near tears  – he came back over and stood right beside me. “It’s OK,” he said with a whole different demeanor. “You have to ask in life. How else will you learn? You ask! It’s fine. It’s good, really.”So that was a nice grocery store exchange. I had the other kind yesterday when I was trying to check out:“Could you please separate out the perishables? “ I said to the kid who was bagging.“Whaaaat?” the kid said, looking past me and smiling an idiot’s smile at another employee.“Could put the refrigerator items- "  but he cut me off:  "Uh, dude: I know what perishables are.”“Sorry! But.... then why did you say ‘What?’“Whaaaat?”“You did it again!”“Oh. uhhh. well I always say What.""Well you’d best break yourself of THAT habit or people are going to be mad at you your whole life.”“NO ONE WILL BE MAD AT ME!” he cried, near tears himself it looked like.And all I could think walking toward my car was “Gad! Now I’m at an age where I’ve got people crying in the supermarket!” Or maybe we all get emotional there, when we look at those price tags.