Today the shop called to say that my Jeep was ready. I said I'd be by this afternoon and they said okay, but when I got there the place was closed and locked up.
Well, hours went by and they didn't come back. Finally this old man came, long white beard, and he got out and was unlocking the door. I went up to the window after he'd gone inside and said that I inferred he must work there since he had keys.
"No, I don't work here," he said. "I own the m*****f*****."
Well, I said, I'd like to pay to pick up my Jeep.
"Have you been working out?" he said.
"Not today," I replied.
"How are you going to pick it up then?"
So after a while he agreed to let me come in and pay for the Jeep repairs, and then he showed me the old clutch they'd pulled out of it (which had shattered impressively). This entailed a lot of probing questions from him about whether or not I understood how a clutch works, which I do. I just don't have a lift at home that will reach the bottom of a raised Jeep, and didn't feel like trying to replace the clutch without one.
I paid him, which required a lot more cussing from him as he tried to work the machinery for the credit card ("I used to could work these things, but they changed it all around"). He cussed his grandchildren who don't answer their phones when he needs them to remind him how to work the machinery. Finally he did figure it out. I got my keys back and was ready to go.
I stuck out my hand. "What's your name?"
He reached for my hand, answering, "Carl," and I shook his hand firmly.
He gasped and I let him go. "Sorry!" I said.
"No, that's good!" he replied, eyes wide. "You don't meet a lot of men anymore. I asked if you worked out, but clearly you do. What do you do, bench press?"
So I mentioned Strongman, and he knew all about it, Atlas stone loading and all that. He was very into it. He turned out to be a very cool guy for a mean old man.
3 comments:
Not mean, just lonely.
When I ran a dry cleaning shop in another town and another age, I had a customer with a very painful medical problem that required occasional dry cleaning of pants that otherwise could be laundered. Grouchy old coot. Something possessed asocial to the point of antisocial me to converse with him, not just dry clean his clothes and take his money.
Having someone to talk to and who wasn't going to ridicule him over his problem, he became quite friendly.
You talked to your mean, lonely old man.
Eric Hines
My wife points out that I usually get along with grouchy old men, which augurs I suppose that I am likely to become one. Hopefully I won't be lonely; mostly, like you, I'm not inclined to much social interaction.
Same, though I have my wife as an icebreaker- she's very good with people. In our business, we have a few elderly clients, and there's no doubt that one thing they like about us is we don't hawk the clock, and we let them speak and we listen. It's not hard, and I often enjoy the conversations we have with them, and it's just clear that a lot of older people just don't get to talk to people as much as they'd like to anymore, and take the chance when it presents. It's rather sad, really. I do my best to always make time and have an open ear for the elderly. I'll be one someday, myself, God willing.
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