I noticed the humming first. It was a soft, beguiling, masculine sound that was warm and welcoming; it effortlessly cut through the vapid drone of the emotionless music coming from the supermarket’s sound system.
As I came around the corner I saw him…a little old man with silvery white hair and twinkling gray eyes shining from behind thick, horn-rimmed glasses. The little old man…he couldn’t have been more than 5’2 tall…was staring intently at the very top row of cans and bags of coffee while patiently humming his lovely little song.
He glanced up at me…I was a foot taller than he…and smiled. “Can you spare a moment, son?” he asked after he stopped humming. “It appears that the good folks who run this establishment have conspired to keep an old man with arthritis from easily obtaining his favorite coffee,” he said with a bright smile in his voice, “and I was wondering if you would help me out.”
“Sure,” I said, pushing my shopping cart to the side so that other shoppers who might come down the aisle could get by, “I’d be happy to. What do you need?”
“There’s a good fellow.” The old man patted my arm and then pointed up to rows of blue cans on the top shelf. “The Maxwell House dark roast,” he said.
“Ah,” I smiled as reached up and retrieved a can, “like your coffee strong, huh?”
The old man chuckled as he accepted the can and put it in his own cart. “That’s the only way to drink coffee, lad,” he replied. “Thank you for your help.”
“No problem, sir,” I said getting back behind my cart and moving down the aisle. “Have a good day.”
“I shall, young man,” he said, pushing his own cart slowly towards the dairy cases at the other end of the aisle, “you do the same.”
He began to hum again, a melody at once familiar and so very hard to place; I smiled again and went on to gather the rest of my groceries with that song echoing sweetly in my head from that point through the rest of my day.
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