This evening:
Me: “Excuse me ‘Grandma,’ how much are these 22s of Coors?”
Grandma: “Oh, it’s, uh, yes…it’s Friday today, neighbor.”
If any of you have ever had the pleasure of entering the College Variety Store on Eddy Street, with its 1930s charm, mothball airiness, and dilapidated window advertisement for ‘Penny Candy’ (I think I remember my grandpa telling me about such an existence), you have likely had the pleasure of meeting one of Collegetown’s finest and oldest establishments…Grandma. Though she knows not of the name’s existence, the term ‘Grandma,’ referring to the store’s sole employee, is a label that entered the Cornellian lexicon long, long ago. The name has been passed down by generations (many) of students, which simply embodies to all who penetrate the store’s musty stratum, a reminder of the slow paces of the bygone Golden Era–the first one…like, way long ago.
Let me get to the point at hand here. I have been a loyal customer of Grandma’s since probably sophomore year. (In fact I remember one drug-induced [I’m talking Tylenol, here] purchase that very year for which my friends can account, of a box of stale Sour Patch Kids [expiration date: 06/66] with a half-inch of dust on top.) Ahh…I strayed again, my apologies. My gist here is actually not to acknowledge some elusive connection between the age of Grandma with the age of her self-titled store’s merchandise. It is rather to express how ridiculous I think it is for this indentured servant–who’s age challenges that of even the Pleistocene era–to be subject to sitting in an un-air conditioned, shack-like storefront without any help from her significantly more able-bodied family. I can account for only two times of the many I’ve paid her a visit when I’ve seen her 63-year-old daughter and 38-year-old grandson lending a hand. (Damn, granny must be old.) The poor woman actually relies on her customers, like me, to “lug” 6-packs from fridge to fridge, which of course I gladly (yet heartbrokenly) do. Ok…”heartbrokenly”–that’s a little thick with the pity, but there is no way Grandma is a happy camper at 10:00 at night on a Tuesday, in either the scorching heat or the bitter cold that Ithaca guarantees. Next time you happen to encounter this elderly woman, give her a great big hug (not too tight, she’ll cave in), and tell her I sent you.
Posted by bmf32 
