Even in as somber a time as this, there are moments of lightness:
A little background. There is 7 1/2 years difference in mine and my sister's age. I have frequently referred to her as "my older sister" around her friends and mine alike, much to her chagrin; even more dismaying to her is the number of people who don't question it. (If you look at Kim, you'd swear that she was younger than me, oddly enough...)
The hospital restaurant at Floyd Medical Center has adequate cafeteria food, affordably priced--but they also offer a senior citizen's discount. The first time we got some food there, I got some chicken, some fries, and tea; Kim got three or four vegetables, a porkchop, and some tea. Everything rang up, and then suddenly the numbers diminished when the cashier hit this little button that I realized later must have been the senior citizen's discount key. I told Kim that it was because she was with me, which perturbed her to no end... my point exactly!
The next day, we told the story to Cole and Christy, who razzed Kim a while about her senior citizen's discount. Then, an hour or so later, we ended up in the hospital restaurant for something to drink. Kim got in line first, a couple of other people got in line, then Cole, Christy and I got in line. I offered Kim some money to pay for her drink, since I didn't see her purse; I mentioned to the people between us that senior citizens frequently forgot their wallets and purses. Kim glared at me, added a few choice comments, then told them, "He's older than me; he just says this to aggravate me." (Why she persists in these tales, I'll never know...)
By the time she got to the register, all eyes were on her. The cashier rang up her $1 cup of coffee and Kim grinned victoriously...and then, a second later, the cashier hit the Key of Age and Kim's coffee fell in price to fifty cents. Everyone behind her snickered. Me, I had the sanguine expression that comes with preternatural prognosticatory propensities...
To make matters worse, when my turn came, she didn't give me the senior citizen's discount. So I pointed at Kim and said, "I'm with her." The cashier looked, said "Oh--OK," then hit the magic Key of Age once again.
Kim swears that the next time she goes in the restaurant, she's going to yell at them if they give her the senior citizen's discount. Old people sure can be touchy...
1 comment:
My brother and I have sort of the flip side of that. Doug is two years older than me, but where I took after my mother's side of the family, turning prematurely gray and then losing my hair, my brother Doug still has all his hair and he's only recently begun to go gray now that he's in his late 40s. As a result, we've been telling people who asked, for years, that I was the older brother. Easier than explaining.
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