Close Encounters of the Weird Kind

When you buy your groceries at Hy-Vee *cue mysterious voice* strange things happen.
(Okay, maybe I'm being a little dramatic. Today I bought my groceries at Hy-Vee. And something strange happened.)

Curtis and the boys and I managed a relatively smooth trip there this afternoon. I swear, we're still struggling with the logistics of this "three little kids" thing - so sometimes I'm exhausted and short-tempered by the time I even get them all dressed to leave the house - but we had a pretty easy day today (insert Hallelujah chorus here). Anyway, we completed our necessary shopping and made it out of there for under $30 (woot!). I was putting the groceries in the back of our Jeep while Curtis got the kids buckled into their seats, and when I turned around to grab the next bag, I nearly jumped out of my effing skin - a woman had appeared out of nowhere and was standing thisclose to me.

She was an older lady, I'd say mid-sixties. (Yes Mom. I just referred to someone a smidgen older than you as "an older lady." But remember that I once also thought 30 was old.) She was round, her brown hair streaked with gray, styled into a fluffy puffball of curls atop her head. She had on some sort of grandma-esque embroidered sweater that buttoned up the front, and her cheeks were flushed. Rosy. She reminded me of, like, a cross between my high school home ec teacher, Mrs. Haynes, and Mrs. Claus. As in Santa's wife. 

I don't have a picture of Mrs. Haynes for reference so you'll have to, you know, use your imaginations and stuff.

Out of the blue, the lady spoke. "I used to work here for two years, and I liked being out with the people," she said.

Right away when she spoke I thought she was either drunk or doped up on painkillers or something. Her speech was just a little too slurred. And my eyes gravitated instantly toward her teeth, which were varying shades - some pearly white, some buttery yellow, in no particular pattern. Like this:

Mmm, coooorrrrn.

Anyway, despite thinking WTF?, I just nodded and smiled politely. Then she went on: "But I don't think my back can handle lifting the heavy stuff. It's iffy."

"I don't blame you," I said after a brief hesitation, which totally did not make sense but I was just too caught off-guard to think of anything coherent. (And anyway, judging by this lady's behavior, she wouldn't have known "coherent" if it came up and bit her in the ass.)

After letting her weird-old-lady gaze rest on me for a few seconds longer, she turned and headed toward the store.

Curtis closed the car door and grinned at me. "What was that about?" he asked.

What, indeed?

I'm still wondering.