Sometimes in Our Lives
We should pay each other attention
This morning, I was wandering around the local grocery store, not because I volunteered to do the grocery shopping, but recently, I’ve been under Jenny’s kosh. Many things put me there, but the biggest is not paying attention to my wife — a sure-fire way to land on no-man’s island.
It’s got to be pretty big trouble to get me to the grocery store. Commenting on Jennifer Aniston’s rack won’t see me chased out of the house, but going to sleep without giving Jenny a goodnight kiss? Holy fuck. My legs are black and blue in the morning. She says it’s because of the tablets I’m on. No, it’s because she has kicked me up and down the backside of tomorrow.
Grocery stores in America are obscene. Where I was brought up, we had a corner shop. You went in, you asked for potatoes, you got potatoes. Ask for tomatoes; you got tomatoes.
The grocery store here first has a weird name, Schnucks. Yep, who in their right mind wants eggs from Schnucks? If you can find fucking eggs.
I can drive a car across the United States and not take a wrong turn. But can I find what I want in a grocery store? Shut it. It’s a rhetorical question. (Right, Jack)
They have junction signs, not where you can see them; oh no, they are ten feet above your head. It’s a sure way to get a crick in your neck. After ten minutes, I found the coffee aisle. Great, right? No, wrong! There are 659 varieties of coffee.
Now, I’m creeping up and down the aisle, one shelf level at a time. Up and down, up and down… ah, that’s the one. It has its own unique sign, out of stock. I’m standing there in dumbfounded frustration.
A woman, at least in her seventies, wearing glasses, looks up at me and offers this: “They have that brand in fresh beans at the end of the aisle.”
I thank her and head that way.
I must have been dressed in something like what a dumb Schnuck would work in, but it was my safety jacket I wear on my new electric bike. I got pissed off telling people I didn’t work here. Not one of them believed me and gave me a vicious huff! Then wandered away.
But here’s a thing about Schnucks: people to assist you are few and far between. It’s worse than Home Depot. They are all hiding, having fun watching us go around in circles through holes in the staff break room.
Anyway, are you still with me? The coffee.
Oh, look, there are only 200 bags of coffee beans and one grinder.
Finally, I have a pound of coffee from Kona.
“Excuse me, sir; is this the coffee that you grind yourself?”
“No, ma’am.” Bollocks. Might as well have some fun. But then she looked so sad and said she had no idea how to grind her coffee. So now I feel like a total shit. Be one at home, be one at the grocery store, right?
“Wait here with me,” I said. There are five people in front of us. And then she went on to tell me about her grandson. Apparently, he was serving in the armed forces overseas in Poland and was coming home in a few days. She told me how he liked to sit with her and drink a particular type of coffee.
Then she dabbed her eyes.
Now I feel worse than a total shit. Like I could go home, sit in the garden and eat worms. I could tell by how she spoke that those moments with her grandson were special to her. And why wouldn’t they be?
I asked her which type of coffee she liked. It was one of those French-roasted vanilla things. I took the bag and showed her how the grinder worked… I poured in her beans and placed her bag underneath the hopper, then asked what kind of coffee maker she had, adjusted it accordingly, and turned it on.
It took about fifteen seconds to grind a pound of coffee… and the smell was terrific.
I took the bag from the hopper and handed it to her, still open. She put her nose in the bag, took a deep breath and said, “Don’t you just love the smell of fresh ground coffee?”… and she held the bag in the air, wanting, I thought, for me to smell the fresh ground beans.
I leaned over and put my head next to hers. Then she reached up and took hold of my arm, and we both took a deep breath of fresh ground coffee.
As I straightened, she kept hold of my arm, smiled, and looked me in the eyes. “You’re a wonderful young man.”
And with that, she walked away, tapping her white stick. She was blind.
I had not paid her the courtesy of noticing her blindness, not paid her any proper attention.
I was lost in the moment; I stood next to that wonderful lady who never explained why she needed help, and together, we got lost in the scent of fresh ground coffee.
There are times in life when you can forget the fucking roses, forget problems, your worries, your concerns, and stop to smell the coffee.
Harry Hogg was born in London, raised in Scotland and now lives between the United States and Britain.
More from Harry:
Adrienne Beaumont | Autistic Widower (“AJ”) | Brett Jenae Tomlin | The Sturg | Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles | Trisha Faye | Karen Schwartz | NancyO | Katie Michaelson | Bernie Pullen | Michelle Jimerson Morris | Amy Frances | Julia A. Keirns | Pamela Oglesby | | Tina | Pat Romito LaPointe | Ruby Noir | K. Joseph | Brandon Ellrich | Misty Rae | Karen Hoffman | Deb Palmer | Susie Winfield | Vincent Pisano | Paari | Marlene Samuels | Ray Day | Randy Pulley | Michael Rhodes | Lu Skerdoo | Pluto Wolnosci | Paula Shablo | Bruce Coulter | Ellen Baker | Kelley Murphy | Leigh-Anne Dennison | Jennifer Marla Pike | Carmen Ballesteros | Marlana, MSW| Patricia Timmermans | Keeley Schroder |Jan Sebastian | James Michael Wilkinson | Whye Waite | John Hansen | Trudy Van Buskirk | Joanie Adams |
(No offence will be taken if you dislike being tagged for various reasons. please let me know, and I’ll be sure it doesn’t happen on my posts again. If, on the other hand, you’d grace me by allowing a tag, I’d be thrilled to add you.)
