Sugar! Velveta and Joy

 I ventured to the grocery store today in order to fill my larder with even more lard. While strolling down th baking goods aisle I hear a feminine voice calling, "Sugar! Here sugar!" I turn and look to see a familiar thin figure dragging an older woman of about my age by her non-resisting hand. 

Never being able to resist the temptation of flirtation, I replied, "Here I am...Err...Oh, I thought were calling me.'

Both women's faces lifted into laughter, the older one's perhaps with a hint of wariness while the younger one's never shifted from its unabashed exuberance. I recognized the younger one as being an employee of the store's that I had observed on many of my previous visits to the establishment. She was a thin, wispy lady/girl, her bubbly enthusiasm lending to more a girlish description than womanish.

"Oh! I was just showing my mom where the sugar is. I WORK here after all." she proclaimed with both pride in declaring her vocation and frustration at her mother's slow moving feet. 

"I know you do," I told her, "I've seen you in here before."

Looking me over and obviously aware of the familiar pork-pie hat atop my head, she quickly quips, "Ya. You're in here all the time."

I think, " well not ALL the time, but obviously often enough for you to have noticed." but instead I say,"Well since you work here would you be so kind as to direct me to where I can find the Velveeta cheese?"

The girl rapidly described  how to navigate to the cheeses and when I informed her that I had already been there but that the Velveeta escaped me, she practically took me by the hand to whisk me over to that aisle while telling her mother that she would return to help her find the sugar that her mother was by now standing in front of. I protested, pointing out that she was not currently"on the clock" but she took no mind. In route, she inquired how my day was going, commented on how nice it was to see the sunshine despite it being cold, and how her day was made so much more happy by the fact that her brother from Texas was in town visiting so she had gotten to spend time with him. Arriving  in the cheese aisle and finding that indeed there was no Velveeta, she immediately offered to escort me to the Deli where they have a "wide assortment of fine cheeses that would certainly suit my needs." I declined the offer telling her that I had my heart set on that fake cheese, Velveta, with all its additives and preservatives, and left her to return to helping her mother.

This wispy girl/lady, with her mennonite style clothing and crooked teeth; what a joyous creature! I know most people would label her as "simple-minded,""slow," or "handicapped " but is she? I think I would welcome a mind that was perpetually happy, overflowing with the joy of life and hellbent on bringing that vision to all she encounters. She brought some of that to me today. I hope I brought some to her as well.