You're Married...For How Long?!!

"Why are you pulling the cart?" she was yelling. "Do you want me to fall?" I was getting into my car, when a shrill voice made me stop and look around. "You want me to fall! I know you do! Leave it alone," she shouted, "I need it to get down the curb." I am not a marriage counselor, but I went to assist the couple that were pulling, and holding back, the shopping cart from Guiseppe's Market.

"May I help?" I asked, not wanting to intrude upon a family matter.

"Yes! Get him away from the cart!" She directed me, as if she were my mother.

"Excuse me, sir. Your wife needs the cart, to help her step down to the curb." Looking at me with his beady, suspicious eyes, he let go of his yanking hand. The large lady, who was wielding her cane with one hand, slowly stepped down while holding on to the horizontal bar of the shopping cart.

"Thank you," she said sweetly. As I was about to turn and head for my car, she continued. "You would think after 60 years of married life, it would be easy. It's not. It only gets worse. He never listens to me; maybe he's lost his hearing. Who really knows? I doesn't want to go see a doctor." Having opened the driver's side door, she gingerly braced herself, for the fall into the driver's seat. Meanwhile, her husband is loading up the trunk with the groceries. I want to help him, because he is taking one bag, at a time, walking around to the back of the car, and placing it in to the trunk. But the elderly woman is now asking me to lift her left leg, which is visibly swollen, and place it in the car. (I kid you not.) I do this for her, as I observe that not only is she walking with a cane, but she is also wearing flip-flops; and she's the driver! I cringe.

"Maybe I should help your husband with the groceries?"

"No. Don't bother. He won't let you, anyway. He is as stubborn as they come! When he was younger, some years ago, I thought he would change. Listen," she adds while pulling me by my tee-shirt closer to her face, "they never change. He was stubborn then and he's stubborn now, " she advised me. I felt that I was stuck in a Seinfeld episode. "He never talked. He was the strong, silent type. I found that attractive. Now, he's at 89 years old, he's just silent.. and that drives me crazy. I talk and he does what he wants. He never listens to me!"

Wanting her to calm down, (certainly this rant cannot be good for her blood pressure) I say, "I understand, really, I do. I am married, also." I thought that by proclaiming my marital status, (it being a common factor) she would somehow settle down. Instead, she had found her audience and continued.

"Do you see how long it takes him to get five (expletive) shopping bags into the trunk?! He thinks we have all day. We don't." (She must have felt comfortable with me, to speak in that way) I made no response. With that, she unexpectedly lays on the car horn and scares me and her husband. "Get in the car already," she shouts. Of course, he cannot hear her, because he is by the back of their Ford. He slams the trunk shut, and slowly walks around the side of the car. He finds the door unyielding to open, and the poor guy, bends and stares into the car..signaling her to unlock the door. "I should make him walk home. What do you think?" she asks jokingly.

I shrugged my shoulders, and say, "I think you and your husband make a cute couple.  Be careful driving home." I did not wait to see how long the tall, thin man waited for her to unlock the door. Within a few minutes, I was already on the Turnpike heading home, thinking..  'Wow...60 years.'                                            Peace.