The Tale of Old Blue the Shopping Granny

Whilst our narrator was shopping after work yesterday for costuming apparel at Goodwill, she happened upon one of the Grannies that makes growing old seem worthwhile. 

On first seeing Old Blue, she seemed a stereotype of the crazy friends of the narrator's own Granny. Blue had a helmet of poofy thick white hair- dyed to the shade of a bluebird's egg for fashion's sake. Her brows were shaved off and then painted on a charcoal grey- one slightly arched and higher than the other, with hot pink lipstick bleeding into her wrinkly granny pout.

Since she was making an outing that day Blue had worn a prized kittens and flowers applique sweater to show she meant business.....and was still a fine figure of a woman for any WWII vets also there to take advantage of the senior discount. 

Blue had up till this point in the story perused the abandoned knick-nacks and found quite a few only-slightly-broken figurines and tacky vases. The top of her cart showed her prizes, but her real treasure was hidden in the bottom of the cart- as we all shall see. 

Or narrator was in line to check out behind a hispanic family of like 5 older ladies and a poor put-upon middle aged man obviously driving las abuelas around and killing time while they shopped away. Las abuelas made quite a crowd so the line was muy looooong. 

Old Blue drunkenly drives her cart through the narrow aisles of crap and makes a sideswipe at the man as she reaches the end of the aisle. "MOVE  OVER LADY!!!" She says. Then a few seconds later. "Oh- you're not a lady. Move anyways!!!!" He moves aside and is laughing at her on the inside just as much as the narrator. So she approaches a checkout booth that is closed and tells everyone- "I wanted to check out NOW!" No luck Old Blue. 

So she then steers her cart back behind the only open line and appears to plan to make a close personal friend of our narrator, but then a lady with dyed dark brown cotton candy hair comes  up to stand with her. Cotton has the standard painted brows(brown at least) and crazy lipstick with applique sweater, but hers is black so she is obviously a darker more morose personality despite the puppies. She and Old Blue then get in a loud discussion about the most prized and previously hidden item in their cart. PEE PADS. Seriously. Who donates Pee pads to Goodwill? Someone apparently. These two have lined the bottom of their cart with packages of blue super thick pee pads. JACKPOT!! and Cotton tells all that she called her son and he said that they are so lucky to have found the pads at such a good price and he can't believe their good fortune either. 

To kill time Blue makes a few comments to everyone in line about how amazing her pee pads are(1 1/2 inch thick dry!!)  and then about her vases- and reveals that she is slightly ......let's say senile.... and repeatedly uses the wrong words and has obvious volume control issues with her voice. Which only endears her more to all she meets.  

Our narrator finally reaches the front of the line and is making her purchases, and Blue comes up beside her at the counter, turns to her and says in a whisper(or so she thinks)" You know those are the pads they have at houses for retarded people!!" 

"Retired people" says Cotton.

"Retired people" repeats Blue. 

"They do look nice" chokes out our narrator, holding in all of the laughter she is capable of. Tears run out the sides of her eyes as she turns to stare in the opposite direction to calm herself and not hurt dear Blue's feelings.

Cotton then tells Blue as the narrator carries off her loot. " OOOOH!! I am gonna get even more of a steal on the Pads.....I am gonna tell them the package is open so they should be half price!!!" Riiiiiiiiipppp. 

Ahhh retired people. We love them so.