"Cutlery"

not "Utensils".

a little ol' lady

was riding the bus home today when i noticed the old lady one seat in front of me.

on her person were: an umbrella, a bag of chips in an old, pink plastic bag, her handbag and another, newer white plastic bag.

when i first took notice she was folding up the newer white bag. just smoothening out the edges, looking like she was going to save it for later. and then i think she kinda noticed her other bag, the older pink one with the chips inside of it.

so what she did then was she started opening the new white bag up again - slowly, carefully, meticulously. then she started to fold her crunchy white bag inside out, again with great care, for fear of tearing it apart i imagine. but only half way though, like you would do at home so that the bag could hang from your dustbin.

so armed now with her half inside-out bag she then turned to her old pink bag, the one with the chips inside of it. it was hanging on her blue umbrella which was in turn hanging on the handle of the bus seat in front of her. so she took her raggedy old bag and began opening it up (it was tied up you see, so that the bag of chips inside, which was already opened, would stay crispy. poor old lady. looked like that bag of chips would take her ten years to eat. but i digress).

so she's undoing the knot on her old pink bag, again with her deliberately cautious pace which by now, i must admit, was beginning to grow on me - slow, steady, firm, driven and strangely poignant all at the same time.

so the bag is undone. the chips threaten to spill out. they don't of course - steady and firm, remember? - and she takes the bag of chips out from the old, creased pink bag and transfers them to the pretty, white, half inside-out one.

a perfect fit.

so here i am, observer to the tale. enraptured by the strange, mundane, everyday 80 year-or-so-old lady with her potato chips and plastic bags and blue umbrella. could you blame me if i was already trying to make up an ending for this story so that it would end with the biggest payoff for my 15 minutes of viewing?

in one hand, her three-quarters eaten bag of potato chips, nestled snugly in an almost crease-free, clean, white and most importantly branded plastic bag; and in the other, the old, decrepit, ugly-looking plastic pink thing shaped peculiarly like it could hold something in it. hmmmm... what could happen next?

yet, a better ending i could never imagine, and therein lies the crux to which this tale is worth relating.

she takes her branded white inside-out bag (with potato chips snug as a pug), holds it like a hotdog in her right hand, and coaxes it into the dirty old pink one which she held in her left. she moves them around a bit so that they would sit just right (as by now i imagine you would see her doing without me having to mention it) before once again tying the pink bag up again.

(and this is the OTHER best bit to this story) the pink bag somehow didn't tie up as neatly as it did before, and there was a little hole through which those sneaky potato chips could peak out into reality.

and as i got up to alight, the bell ringing with its piercing presence demanding to be heard and to be heard NOW, conjuring the familiar beep of the ticketing machine with a flick of my wrist and a tap of my card, the doors opening under the influence of pneumatic pumps that hissed with an impatience that threatened to consume us all, i saw a little old lady dip into her stash of potato chips and take a bite.


you go girl.