No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished           

And that is the mother f-ing truth.

A true story.

Last Friday night, I took my son, ‘D’ to the eye glass place to get his eye glasses fixed.  He had ‘accidentally’ broken them at school and oh yeah, ‘Could I get a different kind?  I don’t like the way these look anymore.’

I’ve only been to this place one other time and that time, my son and I were the only two people in the whole place.  Who knew that Friday night at the Eye Mart Express was like the Post Office at 5pm or the Social Security Office at 8am?

Packed.

With every kind of personality you could ever hope to find, all jammed into a 1200 sq ft. place – trying on eye glasses.  Every five seconds you could hear, ‘What about this pair?’ ‘What about these?’ ‘How do these look?’ ‘Que estas gafas se ven bien?’

‘D’ and I joined in the fun and, thankfully, it takes ‘D’ about as much time to pick out a pair of eye wear as it did for him to decide that the casserole I’m serving for dinner is ‘gross’.

We head to the front to purchase the glasses and have to wait for the sales lady.  She is busy, trying to explain to another couple that even though their Medicaid will cover a pair of eye glasses, it will not cover brands such as ‘Coach’ and ‘Calvin Klein’.  They are able to choose from this lovely little assortment of frames that includes a pair that looks like what the eye doctor gives you to drive home in after your eyes have been dilated.  I laugh internally at that because I guess that’s the government’s way of saying, ‘Sure, I’ll pay for all of your crap, but by God, you aint gonna like what I pick out!’  I think I’ve said something similar to my children before. 

Which I think brings me back to why I am here with my son in the first place and how his glasses ‘accidentally’ broke.

 While we are waiting, I see a couple of elderly women walk in the store.  I guessed by looking at them that they were a ‘mother/daughter’ team and were about 70 and 90 years old respectively.  They shuffle over to the long table where you can sit and try frames on and look at yourself in those round mirrors, that move back and forth and magnify your face so that you look like the Red Queen from ‘Alice In Wonderland’.

The sales lady grabs my attention as she finally comes to check us out and as I am putting my wallet back in my purse, something knocks into my leg, right at my knee actually.  I look down and what do I see?

The 90 year old mother’s chair that had crashed into me and the 90 year old mother as she rolled out of it like a ninja and wiped out face down on the floor.

OMG.

I, of course, drop down to help her up.  I just knew she’d broken a hip at the very least.  I’ve injured myself when I missed a step walking up a flight of stairs.  This lady swan dived off of a roller chair and executed a perfect dive roll before coming to rest on her face; there was no way she was going to come out of this store without being on a gurney.

Apparently when she went to sit down in the chair, she put her hands on the arm rests and of course braced her weight on them so she could gingerly sit down.  The chair had wheels on it and continued to roll back as she continued to sit down.  I’m not sure at what point she realized that the seat was no longer directly under her, but about 6 inches behind her, but in a panic, she tried to shuffle her feet back to try and catch up to the rolling chair – while still hanging on to the arms rests.  I have no idea how that spurned her into a forward roll; I missed that part.  But, in any event, down she went.

So, I’m helping her up and asking her if she is okay and she keeps telling me she’s fine and she’s actually laughing.  I mean, what else can you do?  I had to admire her for that.  I also notice that I am the only one in the store that even tried to help her.  The sales lady didn’t come around to ask her if she was alright, which my jaded-self thought, ‘she should come check on her; if I was her, I would worry about being sued and having to pay for this old lady’s artificial hip!’  Her own daughter didn’t even come over to help her – which in her defense - I don’t think she even knew that her mother wasn’t sitting beside her anymore.  She looked back at us and looked so surprised - like she wanted to ask her mother what the hell she was doing on ground.

It was just dead silence in the store.  I did hear a few gasps when the old lady hit the floor, but then….crickets.  Everyone just sat there staring as I helped her up – which was just f-ing ridiculous.  What was the big deal?!  I mean, my God – I’ve taken worse spills at Henry Hudson’s on a Saturday night after one too many So-Co and lime shots.  Get a grip people!

I get the woman to a sitting position and help her to roll to her knees so she can come up one leg at a time.  When she rolled over – bless her heart – her sweatshirt rode up her back a little and her sweatpants were hanging low on her (as the elderlies’ pants are wont to do) and the entire store got a very wide shot of a very white pair of the granniest panties I have ever seen.  I leaned over to try and cover her a little and she was finally on her knees kind of leaning forward.  So, of course my head and body were kind of close to her back side and…….

She farted right in my face.

She farted loudly right in my face.  In the middle of the f-ing store.

And the whole f-ing store heard her fart in my face.

My son heard her fart in my face.

My son shot a wide-eyed look to me and I had to give him the ‘look’ before he said, ‘Oh, that old lady just farted in your face; did you hear her fart mom?’

I finally got the Golden Girl to her feet and returned her to her daughter who said without pause, ‘So, mom, did you bring your coupon with you?’

I left the store with my son and his glasses and as soon as we cleared the door, he said,

‘Hey, mom did you…..’

‘Shut up, ‘D’.  I don’t want to talk about it.’

Yep, you help an old lady up off the ground and she shits in your face.

No mother f-ing good deed goes unpunished.