Ok, so it wasn't really that great of a Sunday, but I found a way to have a little fun with it.  Kind of a different approach for me.  I was always called "the Black Cloud" by the former significant other.  It was alleged I could find the negative in anything, and it certainly rings true.  Someone has to be the realist, goddamnit.

 But today was a bigger drag than normal.  It is Super Bowl Sunday.  I love football.  I played it in high school.  I coached it at the youth level.  I have had New England Patriots Season Tickets for 17 years.  Football ends today for about 6 months.  Even when watching the Patriots win Super Bowls, I would always be sad after the game, as it meant it would be dormant for 6 months, and then it would only be lousy preseason games, anyway.

It also used to be a big day with my boys, now 21, 19, and 17.  Two of them now live with their mother.  None will be watching the game with me tonight.

In fact tonight, it will just be me and my 11 year old daughter.  She started puking last night at 1 am, and hasn't stopped since, although she is now sucking on a popsicle as I type this at her feet.  The 21 year-old caught most of the vomitorium duty and has since decided to watch the Super Bowl elsewhere.

So that was my backdrop to head to the supermarket.  Instead of picking up fattening things for dips and other munchies, I was in looking for electrolyte popsicles, cleaning products to get puke out of wall-to-wall carpeting, and other sundries for a sick bay on Super Bowl Sunday. 

So I was a little pissed off and feeling sorry for myself as I headed into the Supermarket.  I was thinking to myself that I had to snap out of it.  To do something nice.  (I have paid good money to a shrink for this advice.  I believe it is a reframe in pyschobabblespeak.)  

This was made difficult by a rather tarted out lass packing a few too many pounds for her jeans, her high heels, and her 1970s, B-rated porn movie make up who cut me off in order to get into the store 4 seconds ahead of me.  

So I watched this round heeled bimbo sashay away trying not to think to myself that such folks should not be allowed to breed.  I was noticing that it was a busy shopping day, naturally, for the Super Bowl as I realized I had to walk deep into the cart aisle to grab one.  Where normally there would be about 100 stacked up in two rows, there were only about 10 or 15.

And, as I turned, there was this smiling, diminutive elderly women entering the store.  She just looked happy to be out and about on a sunny, albeit cold day.   

So I simply looked at her, smiled, and said, "Here, there's no sense walking all the way into that pit for a cart.  Take mine.  I need the exercise."  as I handed her my cart.

She smiled and waited for me, as I went to get another one.  As I came up to her, she looked at me and mouthed softly the words, "Thank you. You are a real gentleman."

That gave me a little bit of a boost.  I have to admit.  We bumped into one another in the fruit section immediately after the cart hand off, and then I lost track of her for about 20 minutes.  I was in the throes of texting folks to find out what I should buy to get puke smell out of wall-to-wall as well as being admonished by my 17 year-old son to watch my daughter carefully based on some friends having had to go to the ER from dehydration.  

While it was a little like him trying to tell his Granny how to suck an egg, it is amusing to me how much the boys rally around their kid sister in crisis even though they tease her mercilessly the rest of the time. 

So that was making me feel good after bumming out about them not watching the Super Bowl with their old man.

Ultimately I got down to my usual routine in the supermarket of leaving the cart hard against an end cap as I wander the store trying not to drool looking for a few odd items I haven't a clue where to find.  This time it was baking soda and vinegar for a puke ameliorating carpet concoction texted to me while in the supermarket.

And so it is was during this endeavor that I came upon the little old lady again.  I turned into an aisle, and there she was by the candy.  She was eye balling the large chocolate bars.  I stopped a few feet in front of her cart, as there was another woman heading in the same direction as I who was blocking me from passing the lady.

I saw the old lady pick up a chocolate bar,  hesitate as if to put it back on the shelf, and then place it on the top tray of her cart and look up to start moving her cart.

As she looked up, she saw me about 5 feet in front of her cart smiling and shaking my finger back and forth at her.

 "That stuff is bad for you, you know."  I said jokingly, as I moved past her to get to the opposite end of the aisle where I thought I would find the baking soda. 

The other lady who was blocking my way laughed as well.  I heard the two woman exchange a few words out of my ear shot before the one for whom I had gotten the cart turned out of the aisle and the other lady came up to where I was staring, yet again, with my mouth agape looking for baking soda.  (It was flour.  I was shit out of luck.)

She passed between me and the side of the aisle at which I was looking waiting for me to make eye contact.  As I did, she simply smiled at me and said softly, "You made her day, you know."

And, while I didn't say anything, I am here writing to tell you that hearing that made my day, as well.

So I will sit by my daughter hoping she stops puking and lowers her temp tonight watching the Super Bowl and rooting for Payton Manning to cry and whine like the little baby that he is.  I might make up a little clam dip for myself.

And I will smile wondering how many pieces of that precious chocolate bar the little old lady ate tonight before turning in.