I was running errands today and decided to take a stroll through a local garden center.
As I stood checking out some plants, I noticed a woman down the aisle from me who was straining to reach some pots on the very top shelf. She was probably about my age, late 30s/early 40s.
“Would you like some help with that?” I offered. “I have very long arms.”
“Oh, yes,” she replied, “Just when I needed someone, you appear.”
So I lifted what turned out to be an enormous container full of small perennials down to her level.
“There you go,” I smiled.
Then she said, in the creepiest sing-song way you could possibly imagine, “Thank you, mommy!”
It was like the part in a horror movie just before things go wrong, when you’re waiting for the oddball character to say something weird to kick things off and confirm your worst fears.
So I think I muttered something like, “No problem,” but I also got the hell outta there. Because even though I’m reasonably certain my life story doesn’t end with a pair of pruning shears in my chest, I’m not hanging around the hanging flowers to find out.