Courtship

(With apologies to this state park volunteer.)

I was walking through the hardware store today (I had sold some stock and was going to buy some birdseed for the feeders '-) ) and I noticed that lines were beginning to get long as it was a Saturday.  A woman, close to my age, maybe a little younger, with a man's haircut was watching me closely.  I suddenly felt guilty pushing the cart with the 40 pound bag of bird seed toward the register thinking to myself that she might be having trouble meeting her food bills and here I was feeding woodpeckers!

An elderly man with a small electric drill got in line behind me.  She looked from across the other register line at him and smiled and called, "Hey, Joe, how are you doing?"

Joe smiled, left my line and got behind her, since she was already approaching a register clerk, and they chatted warmly while both paid for their purchases.

I saw them again in the parking lot as I was lifting the heavy bird meal into the trunk of my car.

They were joking about some project he was working on with that drill and she was laughing that she would just "paint a circle over it."

Then as I returned the cart to the store door and passed the elderly couple, the man turned to the woman and asked, "Say, where did you get those fancy pants?"

I looked up and for the first time noticed that the woman was dressed in a baggy gray sweat shirt and a pair of pink and purple flowered pants that only a colorblind or very confident person would wear out shopping.  I missed what she said in response, but could not help but smile...old people flirting and men still use silly lines!