Sweet Aunt Patsy

Even I’ve called her Aunt Patsy on occasion, though she’s not my aunt. She’s the aunt of the sisters with a hair salon in a small town near me. She’s in her mid-to-upper 80s so she’s really their great aunt. When she comes in, she’s all bright and cheerful and chatting away in her old timey Texas accent. Last Friday when I came, she was already there. The girls were now all caught up on the family. After her hair was finished, she stayed and visited with another customer. That’s how Patsy and I both left at the same time. But when she got to her SUV, she accidentally dropped her keys in between the front seats. I waited to see if I could help. As she struggled to retrieve her keys, I noticed a stick about a foot and a half long on the ground. I handed that to her. She pushed the keys as far as she could toward the back seats and opened her back door. What a mess, she said as she began to describe everything in her back seat. Then, she said, let me show you what’s in the trunk. She opened the trunk and showed me the Christmas items she had gotten at half price at Walmart after Christmas. She showed me the bag of egg cartons she was returning to some person I didn’t know. She showed me the bag of plastic bags she was saving. Then there was her husband’s walker. She also had an old Styrofoam ice chest that reminded her of another story. After that, as we both were shivering from the cold by now, she retrieved her keys and we parted ways. I love living in Texas!