On getting old . . . I voted today and then, went to Walmart to get a few things. When I got out of my car, I noted a thin, elderly lady pushing a cart and looking quite confused. I immediately thought that she could not find her car.

I asked, "Do you need some help?" Yes, she did and I was right: she could not find her vehicle which, according to her, was a blue pick-up. She said that she had searched the entire parking lot.

"Are you sure that you parked on this side?" I asked.

She replied testily, "Of course I know where I parked."

Okkk . . . She said that she had come with a friend but couldn't find her. I told her she could page the friend in the store and she said, even more testily, "I did a lot of times. I called her, too. She didn't come."

She asked me if I could take her home. Well, not a good idea since she had a friend in the store.

We wandered around the parking lot and I found a blue pick-up. She said it was not hers and against my better judgement, I said, "Are you sure it isn't yours?"

"I guess I know my own pick-up," she snapped.

She snapped at me quite a few times when I questioned her, but I kept my patience intact.

She opened her purse, took out some keys, handed them to me and said, "Hold these so I won't lose them." She then took out her phone and called the friend again, leaving a voicemail. She put the phone back in her purse and said, "I don't know what I did with my keys." I told her that she handed them to me and gave them back. She said, "Was that all I gave to you?"

"Yes."

I said, "Let's go inside and have your friend paged one more time."

She responded, "I TOLD you I already did that! Do you think that I don't know what I'm doing?"

Well, yes--that is exactly what I thought.

I suggested that we walk back to the store and if she didn't want to page again, that she stand by the door because her friend would come out sooner or later. We walked that way and once on the sidewalk, she called the friend again who answered this time. The woman demanded, "Where are you?! I had you paged and you never answered. What?"

Silence from her for a second.

"Oh, well, I thought that you had come to the store with me. Can you come get me?"
I went inside, told the door greeter that a disoriented old woman was outside and management or security needed to go see about her.

On my way out, the door greeter told me that he had alerted management, but he didn't know if anything had been done. The woman was not outside the door or wandering the parking lot when I got outside.

This woman, IF she drove to the store, should not be driving. She shouldn't be leaving the house alone. She was angry with me several times, but I understood it was due to her confusion. I wonder how long she had wandered before I showed up.

And so it goes . . .