Mrs. Smith

Mrs. Smith gripped the buggy handle so tightly that her old lady’s rings pressed into her fingers and her knuckles were white, except at the very top, where they were wrinkled and prune like. The store was full of people. Young people, old people, people walking alone, people walking with other people. People with long legs, short legs. A person with no legs riding in a chair with wheels. So many people it scared her.

This really is ridiculous, she thought as she steered through a crowded aisle. Sending me out here- oops! Clipped that guy’s buggy.

“Sorry,” she said aloud. The apologies streamed behind her like a trail of perfume. “’Scuse me,. . . oh, sorry about that, . . . you’re fine, that was my fault, . . . let me just-“

She annoyed most of the people she was around in one way or another. A lady got stepped on when Mrs. Smith backed out of the way of another customer, a teenage boy got stuck in one of those, “no, you go first” situations and lost sight of the girl he’d been planning to ask out for three months. A baby riding in a stroller started bawling because Mrs. Smith so resembled the old woman in her bad dreams.

She made it to the back of the store and picked up the milk, checking it off her list and heading for the other items. Finally she was in the check out line, where she picked up an issue of Lady’s Home Journal.

“Impulse buy,” she grinned to the cashier.

The items were bagged up and she carried them all the way home, letting herself in through the back door and heading upstairs right away. She knocked on the door to Newt’s room. He opened it and, with a small and silly bow, let her in.

“Let’s see what you’ve got,” he said and locked the door again.

She laid the bags on his bed and started pulling out the contents. One half gallon of milk, a macaroni and cheese dinner, an extension cord (yellow), a roll of packing tape, and the Lady’s Home Journal. Newt examined them each and finally asked to see the list.

“You picked up the wrong kind of extension cord,” he said and put it back in the bag. “You’ll have to return it. I specifically asked for one that is 25 feet, you brought me one that is 50 feet.”

Mrs. Smith clasped her hands in front of her like a little child. “You asked for a yellow one. That was the only one they had.”

“I see,” Newt nodded and folded the list into his pocket. “I guess the instructions confused you.” He heaved a great sigh and flipped on the lamp sitting on his desk, scribbled something into the notebook that Mrs. Smith was not allowed to read.

“When I wrote that I meant to get me a yellow one if they had it. Do you understand?”

She shook her head.

“I needed an extension cord that was 25 feet long,” he gestured with his hands and she nodded. “My preference was that it would be yellow, but it didn’t have to be.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Newt eyed Mrs. Smith carefully. Finally he sighed and turned to the desk, writing something else in the notebook. “I guess we’ll have to start over.”

Mrs. Smith pulled the wig off her head, exposing the glittering electronic panel.

Newt picked up the magazine.

“That’s the impulse buy,” she said proudly. “Just like you told me.”