Small Town America

Seen at the post office in a small town on Friday:

A little old lady wearing a floppy hat and a smock covered with multi-colored cats in rowboats. She was happy and cheerful, even though she seemed to be hard of hearing or in the early stages of Alzheimer's.

There was one lady in line between me and the little rowboat lady. This lady in front of me had on a blouse with a big tag sticking out the back. That tag was driving me crazy, but you just don't touch strange people's backs in the line at the post office.

I stood patiently in the rather long line, watching the people in line in front of me. When the line was supposed to move forward the little rowboat lady didn't notice and just stood there. The tag lady just walked around her and jumped in front of her. I was a little irritated that someone would jump in front of a nice little old lady like that.

So now the rowboat lady was directly in front of me. The tag lady was at the counter being waited on by the postal clerk (who always wears a surgeon's mask-that's another story). The adjacent postal clerk said "NEXT!" and the little old lady just stood there in her own happy little world. Finally she realized it was her turn and started to go forward when she noticed the tag lady's tag. She very sweetly went over, tucked it in, made a soothing little comment to the tag lady and then went to be waited on........

Its amazing what you can learn about people just by watching their actions in a line at the post office on a regular old Friday morning in small town America!