Abuela

I was in line today at Costco a couple of customers behind a little Spanish abuela.  There was a bit of a commotion and I caught enough of the conversation to gather that she didn't have enough money to pay for all of her purchases.  She took out her wallet and put a bunch of change on the conveyor - including a pile of pennies - that the attendant began to separate out.  The customer - a tiny woman dressed very neatly - was in the spotlight.  I know older people (Ed. Note: she was probably my age), especially immigrants, have a lot of pride so this was unwelcome attention; reminded me of sitting on the sidewalk while a cop radioed my information back to the station while I tried to avoid the stares from passersby.  That kind of attention.  She needed to either cough up some more cash or start taking items out of her basket.  I took out my wallet, ducked around the people in front of me, and asked the attendant how much she owed.  The bill was thirty-five dollars or so and she had put down fifteen dollars, more or less, so she needed another twenty bucks.

Fuck, I thought, standing there with smy wallet out, Big Man coming to the rescue, assuming that because they were counting pennies, that she was a little short.  She wasn't close.  She wasn't in the game.  I handed the clerk a twenty.  I couldn't see how I could say: "Nah.  Changed my mind.  Carry on."  The bill made a ripping, groaning, screaming sound as it exited my wallet and there was one final, blood-curdling shriek as I handed it to the clerk who gave me back a few thin dimes.  The abuela nodded to me, thanks, and said something to the clerk in Spanish and left and into eternity, as far as I was concerned.  I wanted, of course, for sirens and whistles to go off and a rain of confetti to fall from the ceiling as the lights went out and a big spotlight danced on my humble form.  Silence.  Solitude.  I eased back into my space in line.

When the attendant started to ring up my items she turned to me and said: "That was very kind of you."

I said: "That twenty dollars is going to bring me a hundred and twenty dollars worth of peace of mind.  I'm going to float on that twenty dollars for a couple of days."

She checked out a few more items and then said: "She told me 'my god was with me here today.' "

And what do you say to that?  "Well, I've been called the devil a few times . . . "

This whole idea of doing something for someone else with no quid pro quo is still somewhat alien to me.  I still feel vaguely screwed when I'm doing it.  I joined a sponsee for lunch the other day and the bill for way too much food was seventy-five bucks.  I have more money than he does so I offered to pick up the tab.  "No, we'll split it," he said.  He paused a few beats and then added: "Tell you what . . . you get this one and let's do lunch more often."  

That never works out.  :)