A funny thing happened on the way to the pharmacy

It was after five on Friday afternoon, and I needed to hit the bank and pharmacy before they closed. My new, English neighbor, who is renovating the house he bought last summer, let the tape measure slide back into its housing then looked up to see me heading toward my car.

“I kept thinking I’d get out earlier,” I whined. “Not the best time to be running errands.”

“Augh. The worst,” he commiserated.

He made other comments. “End of the week… cranky people… ”  His soft-spoken British didn’t quite make it all the way across the yard, so I caught only snippets, but it was evident he was on my team and understood the challenge ahead.

At the bank drive-thru, I had three lanes from which choose. You know already, because that’s how it is on a Friday after five, the one I picked was slowest. The popcorn clouds in the late day sky reflected off the rear window of the blue Nissan sedan ahead of me, making it impossible to see in, but I got the impression there were two or three people in there, transacting together. That stupid canister went up and down that stupid chute three or four times, my tension rising with each vacuum suck. I remember dropping at least one f-bomb. And, then, something interesting happened.

I looked at the clock. I did the math. The pharmacy wouldn’t close for an hour. Dinner was planned - I’d left Moroccan chicken burbling away in the slow cooker. I exhaled. It was finally my turn.

Shortly after, another woman and I stepped across the pharmacy parking lot together. From way over on the opposite side, peals of laughter - high pitched, conspicuous, delightful.  The woman and I glanced at each other before converging at the entrance with two more people I assumed to be a couple, the guy’s wide, white smile a remnant of his cackling seconds before.

“Y’all’re making everybody laugh!” I said.

“I want to know what’s so funny,” my parking lot buddy acknowledged.

I still had a grin on my face as I grabbed my cart. One of the wheels wasn’t spinning, so I had to push harder than usual. There was a line at the drug counter, two folks ahead of me and two being helped. From the back of the pharmacy, a worker raised his voice towards someone out front.

“I don’t have it, and I can’t get it! It will take at least an hour. WE CLOSE AT 7:00!” he shouted.

The situation at the next station was still in process when I was called up. The woman, elderly, leaning on a tripod cane, had her mask down at her chin. She was crying.

“I understand. I’m sorry,” she whimpered to the employee who moments earlier had been working harder than usual to be heard. “I know it’s not your fault.”

I commented to the tech helping me, “I know it’s not my business, but I feel terrible for her.”

“Your name,” she asked, expressionless, ignoring my concerns.

Medicine in hand, I ventured into the rest of the store to pick up a few more items. I was deep in my head thinking about cheese when a voice broke in.

“I love your shoes! It’s all so...” she waved her hands around like she was directing a choir. “I mean, you just look adorable!”

This lady was probably half my age and smartly dressed. My spouse is demonstrative but as a rule doesn’t base his admiration on my attire, not to mention the impact working from home has had on my daily threads. The upshot: I haven’t been on the receiving end of that kind of praise in a while.

“Oh, gosh! Thank you!” I spluttered. And then, a half-breath too late, I managed, “Likewise!”

Okay - bear with me now, because the rest of this might tiptoe into too much woo for some of you. But, I’m thinking I’m not alone. (Let me know in the comments!) I’m betting this happens with some frequency, and we just don’t talk about it. And, I believe we don’t talk about it because we don’t know quite how to explain it without sounding a bit barmy.  

Well, I’m going to try.

Back in the car, headed home, an odd but recognizable sensation hit. It was as though, for the past hour or more, I had been given the opportunity to walk onstage in the middle of a play to see if my character would work well in the story, or not. It started at the moment in the bank line when I, unintentionally or subconsciously, let go.

To describe this episode as an opening portal or a lifting veil would be inaccurate. It wasn’t so dramatic as that. Someone might compare it to a psilocybin trip. But, without the fungi-stimuli it was maybe not very similar. The planetary beings were still there, all doing what we do in the dance of daily existence, but there was a shift, a nearly imperceptible shift, like the way someone stands just a little taller after receiving a compliment.

Time slowed, became less linear. Nothing mattered. And, it was all, simultaneously, more meaningful. Everything had an opportunity to become, and in becoming to be fully seen, deeply felt, thoroughly heard. Looking back, I wondered what the Playwright thought of my character and whether the story had benefitted at all from my presence. I wondered if anyone else on stage that evening felt the same way. And, I wondered, when the curtain fell, if the actors would be proud of their performances.

~Elizabeth