I kicked up my heels today, the first Monday of living alone. I walked to the stop sign with neighbor Joyce, then I took a joy ride in the car. Joy ride is not the right term; I only ran two errands, but I was free to go wherever I wanted. The first leg was driving to the convenience center, more commonly known as the dump. I had never been there by myself, always having gone with John, then David, and last week niece Chrissie. It was great to know that the trash was out of the house and wouldn’t be too unwieldy for me to manage.

From there I went to Dollar General for things I wanted a bit ahead of time. That included toilet paper, toilet bowl cleaner, and dog food. The pet food that Chrissie and I bought last week was going down at an alarming rate, so I bought a larger bag this time. Kacey wolfed it down when I gave her a sample.

Chrissie and I remarked on a young man in Dollar General who was moving all around the store and seemed to be quite helpful. I was the only one checking out today, and he was standing at the register.  He motioned me to come over, that he would check me out.  I told him I appreciated that, because I was new to scanning things myself. Chrissie had watched as I did it, but I much preferred him to do it. I said for the first time in 81 years I was living alone, enjoying it but had no one to shop with.  He beamed and said, “This is the time for you to travel the world and see everything you always wanted to see!” 

I told him I’d seen most of what I wanted to see, and now it was time for people to visit me.  I asked what country he would like to see.  Ireland was the instant answer.  His grandparents had come from there, and he wants to see it for himself.  He was so animated and engaging.  It was fun to chat with him.

After my trash and shopping spree were over, I talked to son John $ for a couple of hours.  We began talking about rotary phones, and I told him the first phone of my childhood had no dial. We would pick up the receiver, wait for the operator to say “number please”, then say the number we wanted. I still remember that the pharmacy was “one”, and my dad’s office number was 29. My grandmother who was born in 1890 had the number 207 and the one born in 1880 had 278. From my description of the telephone, he sent a picture he found on the internet. It was accurate. I found another to send him of a later version. We came back to the present when our stomachs began to growl. He was going to have breakfast, and I was heading for lunch.