Kmart Experience
As I was on my way to gaming Tuesday night, I had a few extra minutes. I intended to run into Kmart for a quick trip. As I opened the door, a commanding elderly black woman pushing a cart told me to “keep the door open for her” in a no nonsense town. Gentleman that I am, I held the door for her as she pushed a shopping cart out of the store with a heavy-looking suitcase in it and some sort of plastic bag in the child area. She then matter of factly started telling me how rude the store manager was, and how rude some other customer had been, and asked me to help her get the suitcase out so she could retrieve a camera. She wanted to snap a shot of a table she had told another customer to buy. She even encouraged the customer to make an offer instead of pay the posted price. She seemed miffed the manager or customer (not sure which) had not compensated her for her suggestions by giving her something. We got the camera out, and she took a polaroid of the table in question that was sitting outside. She kept up a running dialog of “trained as an architect”, “live in Brentwood”, “I don’t expect to be disrespected”, “I sold cars for a day and was the most successful salesperson. They gave me a car.” She either has led the most interesting life imaginable, or she is a bit off her rocker. I couldn’t tell if she was waiting for someone to pick her up, or if she might even be homeless. She was dressed very nicely, thanked me warmly for helping her with the bag, and we parted ways. It was a very surreal experience. I went with the flow and helped her, was polite, and nodded my head appropriately. I hope I went a little way to brightening her day (”that nice young man that helped me at Kmart” sort of karma).