Senior Moments, Volume I

There was an old lady that lived in a shoe. Wait, that's not where I want to go with this article. Although, I do want to write about an experience I had with an entirely different little old lady. . .

When I first arrived in Charlottetown I realized that I would need to find employment. Being the beginning of the summer I figured I had good chances at picking up something seasonal. At the job bank I found an ad looking for someone to do yard work, and being a person who enjoys the outdoors and manual labour I figured I'd go for it. I called the number listed with the ad and someone who sounded very much like a little old lady answered. The job had not been filled, and I was quickly hired. I was to start the very next day.

The address wasn't far from my place so I walked over. As I strolled down the tree-lined street, I noticed an older home, a farm house style building and there on the front porch sat my little old lady. Already I could tell that this was no ordinary old lady. When I approached the porch I got a good look at my new employer. She must have been at least 80 if she was a day, her wispy white hair was tied in a bun on top of her head, and she was covered from head to toe in a black cloak. On her feet were black rubber boots. Some interesting summer apparel, I must say. Her face had that wrinkled and sunken in look and yet her eyes still held onto her youth.

As I walked up to her I introduced myself and explained that I was ready to get to work.  She was pleased and announced that her gentleman friend would be by promptly to pick us up and take us out to her cottages. Within minutes her friend arrived in his truck whose bed was full of various types of flowers. We piled in and were off.  We made small talk on the way over and her friend was quite the tour guide, pointing out different points of interest and bits of local lore, as we sped along our way.

Once at the cottages he helped me unload the flowers and explained that he had some errands to run and would be back for us in a couple of hours. Perfect, there seemed to be plenty do between the planting of flowers in large flower beds and the general upkeep of the four cottages. My little old lady made her way to the main cottage and said, "You start on that bed and I'll be in here, I'll be out in a bit to see how you're doing."

It's nice not to have someone hovering over you while you work, especially feeble people who might not be able to stand steadily, so I was just as glad that she stayed inside. It was not to last, however. I was halfway through my work in the first garden and up to my elbows in dirt when the ol' gal came out to inspect my progress. I watched as she carefully hobbled over to where I was and looked approvingly on what she saw.  She stood back and said "This looks good, maybe you'd like to stop for something to drink."

I was quite warm and sweaty by this time so a drink sounded like a mighty wonderful thing, but before I could respond, my little old lady looked at me in horror. "Oh dear," she said, "oh dear, I'm not going to make it."

"What? What's wrong?  What aren't you going to make?" I asked in concern.

"I'm not going to make it" she shrilled. At this she turned on her heel as fast as one in rubber boots can turn and hobbled away at what was an impressive pace, all the while calling out "I'm not going to make it."

I was perplexed I had no idea what she was talking about but she seemed determined to get back into the cottage. Had she heard the phone ring? That was hardly the case, as her hearing wasn't all that great. Perhaps she had something on the stove and could smell it burning?  That didn't seem likely either.  I decided to go after her in case there was something I could do.  As I came to the cottage she was just making her way up the steps to the deck when she stopped, a look of resignation on her face. She gripped the railing as she said "I didn't make it, I didn't make it."

I still had no clue what was going on, was she having a mental episode? What was the deal? At that moment she looked down at her boots and I followed her gaze, and that's when I noticed it, a small trickle of liquid was running down her leg right into her boots. Oh dear is right, I thought. She slowly made her way to the top of the deck to sit on one of the lawn chairs. I came up after her and asked where the towels were so we could get her cleaned up.  

I dashed inside and quickly came back with the towels, meanwhile she had managed to remove her boots.  I bent down to help her dry off her legs when she asked me to clean out her boots and she would take care of herself. Sure, sounds like a plan I thought. I picked up one boot and tipped it over the railing of the deck and I was just about to put it down and get the other when she said to me, "Dear, there's paper towel in the bottom of my boots, you'll have to take that out."

Eww. I carefully pried out the soaked paper towels and tossed that over the railing too — could this get much worse? Fortunately her gentleman friend pulled up about then and we decided that this was a good time to call it a day.  Fine with me, I thought. At this point all I wanted was a hot bath.

On the way home she mentioned that after we finished the cottages, there was a room in her house she'd like me to clean, but I'll leave that story for another time.