Little Old Ladies / Kleine alte Damen

Little old ladies in Salzburg are ultra cute. They are tiny and stooped and surprisingly spry, probably because of a lifetime of breathing mountain air and riding bikes and walking to bus stops. Frequently they are dressed in trachten (traditional clothing), or at least well put together outfits with skirt and overcoat, and sometimes even a feathered hat perched atop their well-coiffed hair. When shopping, some come with wheeled shopping bags that they hang from their shopping cart, while others carry around large wicker baskets with crisply ironed hand-embroidered tea towels lying over the top. They are exactly what I imagine the grandmother in the old fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood to be, kerchief on head, waiting peacefully for Little Red to drop by until she is outwitted by the wolf. Little old ladies in Salzburg look to have stepped right out of a story book.

But, looks can be deceiving, especially when you combine one of those cute little old ladies and a grocery store check out line. There is something about the check out line/old lady combo that makes me wonder if, by chance, the little old ladies might be in cahoots with that sly old wolf. Yes, I'm overgeneralizing (and I'm sure that there are many wonderful little old ladies here), but sneaky happenings occur far too often to simply be shrugged off as a strange once-in-a-life-time encounter. Just about every time I am in a grocery store, one of the following three scenarios plays itself out, each time with a different cast of characters. For some reason, bars of 39 cent cooking chocolate (which really taste quite good and is a remarkable deal for the amount of chocolate you get) frequently play a role.

1) The check out line is long. It snakes its way through the store. A second register opens up, but the lines are still long. It's approaching meal time or closing time, and people are hungry. You join the line, patiently waiting for your turn, spending time examining the bottles of soda and cartons of juice and admiring the flowers as you get closer and closer to the check out conveyor belt. When you are only a person or two away, you spot her, the little old lady who has crept up on the other side of the juice cartons, in no line whatsoever, and is staring at the ceiling. The line shuffles forward. You shuffle forward. The old lady shuffles forward, still staring at the ceiling. The old lady shuffles forward again. A step at a time, she continues to shuffle when it's not time to shuffle. And then it's time for the line to shuffle forward again, but the line can't or else it will clip the hip of the little old lady, still staring at the ceiling and now with her back to the line. She shuffles forward again, in front of you, not turning, not acknowledging your presence, not looking at anything but the ceiling, until she has secured what should be your place at the conveyor belt but is now hers for unloading into. Never, not during the unloading of her 39 cent bar of cooking chocolate or bag of day-old half price bread rolls or bottle of champagne, or paying the cashier, or packing up her bag, will the woman make eye contact with anyone except the cashier, at whom she will smile broadly and compliment kindly, as if there no other customers waiting behind her at all.

2) There's not much of a check out line and you inwardly rejoice at your luck in beating the crowds to the cash register. Strangely, there is an unattended cart with a folded up wheely bag hanging from it, in the aisle midway up the conveyor belt with a 39 cent bar of cooking chocolate lying on the belt. You aren't sure if it belongs to the lady just stepping up to the cash register (the cart looks empty with its wheely bag blocking the contents, but you can't really tell) or if it belongs to someone else. It doesn't really matter whose it is as there is empty space on the conveyor belt, and so you place an order divider behind the cooking chocolate and unload your things. Just as the cashier is ready to start with the next customer and the unattended cart (which does not belong to the other lady) is about to become an issue, a little old lady materializes out of no where, mumbling as she saunters by you, and starts fiddling with the wheely bag. The cashier asks the lady to unload her cart, which elicits more mumbling. It is clear that the lady was hoping the cashier would call her forward and process her order straight from the cart, which happens occasionally when people have multiple plants or cases of beer or the like. The old lady unloads a mountain of merchandise, mumbling still, and as soon as she's finished, she goes back to fiddling with the wheely bag. She's still midway up the aisle, and the cashier is carefully piling the purchases like a precarious 3-D puzzle on the little shelf next to her. She calls to the woman, asking her to bring her shopping cart over. The little old lady pushes the cart to the end of the aisle, parking it next to the little shelf, and once more bends over and fiddles with the wheely bag. By this time, the cashier has finished ringing through the items, the tower of goods is swaying, and the check-out line has come to a stand still. The lady fiddles some more, despite the fact that she now has two tasks to complete: putting her things back into her cart and paying the cashier. The game becomes clear as the cashier gets up, puts everything into the cart for the lady and steps back to the cash register. At the very instant that the work is done, the old lady stands up, fishes a wallet out of her pocket, and hands over the money.

3) The check out line is long, or maybe it's not, but there is a line. You've been standing there and are just about to make that final step up to the conveyor belt when a little old lady with a bouquet of flowers and a 39 cent bar of cooking chocolate in one hand and a beautifully embroidered - tea towel covered - wicker basket in the other steps up to you. "Would you mind if I went in front of you?" she smiles. "I only have a few things." You look at your cart, which only has a few things also, but there's no rush and so you allow her to step ahead, feeling sorry for her for a moment, imagining her sitting at home looking at her tulips stuck into an empty wine bottle while eating tiny bites of cheap chocolate. But your pity quickly fades as the bouquet and chocolate are laid out and then the tea towel is whipped off to reveal a basket so filled with merchandise that it is a wonder that the little old lady can lift it up, let alone carry it around so effortlessly. The conveyor belt quickly fills up, and the cashier who has witnessed the whole scene looks at you with a sparkle in her eye and a sly grin on her face as if to say, "You've been had, Fool!"