The Little Old Lady I Am Destined To Become

My daughter and I had recently moved to a different state and were just settling in there. Instead of taking our car, I left the car with her sister who lived on campus at university. My son already had a car.

So daughter and I proceeded to find a used car in the new small town in the state we had not lived in previously. Some very nice people pointed us in the direction of a man who sold cars as his father had done before him.

We picked out a car, paid in cash, went on our way. Two days later as were trying to find our way from one town to another town out in the farm areas with no street signs, the engine died. Plenty of gas. No sign of engine heating. That was about all I knew to check for.

Daughter and I got out and walked to where there were houses. We knocked on a door. No answer. Next house. No answer. Next house, an elderly gentleman answered the door, timidly listening to our dilema, but holding the door partly closed. I had no way to call anyone, and this man was not able to help us as he was too old to drive. Actually I remember thinking, thank goodness he would not be out on the streets driving as shaky as he was.

My daughter who was fourteen at the time did her little please help us we are stranded and new to town routine and got the man to let us in to use his phone. As soon as we stepped into the house a woman screamed. "Who are these people and why did you let them in?" Yikes.

He pointed to the phone on a small table and we called the only people we knew who owned a business in town and had to interrupt the scene behind us between husband and wife long enough to be able to tell our friend where we were. She said she would be there as soon as she could. Whew.

Then the man began wiping down the woman's wheel chair, kept rubbing it all over as if in his nervousness at what seemed to be her usual behavior. The woman put her arm on the arm of the wheel chair while he was adjusting things in her chair and talking soothingly and quietly to her and he did not see that her arm was now right where he started rubbing.

The skin on the woman's arm was paper thin. Transparent. Bony wrists. As the cloth moved over the skin on the woman's wrist, the skin rolled back and blood slowly oozed out. Dang.

The woman began simpering and moaning. She scolded the man and asked him why couldn't he watch what he was doing. His eyes behind the coke bottle glasses looked like they would pop out of the sockets. He was in shock. He began wiping at the bloody wrist with the dirty cloth.

My daughter and I looked at each other and silently agreed that we wanted out of there. I quietly thanked them for the use of their phone and she and I walked out the front door and walked a couple houses away to wait for our friend. We don't think the older man and woman even noticed our departure.

My daughter and I talked about that elderly couple many times over the years. It was a touching scene and it felt like we were intruding on something intimate between the husband and wife.

Now that I am in a private and personal relationship and getting up in years it seems natural to see myself with hubby twenty years from now, not driving, helping each other as best we can, in sickness and in health you know, and attending to each others needs, devoted to a cherished and faithful relationship.

Oh yeah, the car? I called the car salesman and told him he had to take the car back and give me a reliable car. He told me that wasn't how it was done, I bought it as is. I told him I would never leave him alone until he made it right. What, I paid a thousand dollars a day for a car and then had no transportation? No way. In the end I got a different and better car.

Note: Illusion graphic found on Google.