ARE YOU GOING OUT?

4139

A few days ago, I drove up to the Dollar Tree to buy a couple of greeting cards.

As I stepped through the door, I noticed an elderly lady completing her purchases. The cashier had all but finished loading up four or five grey plastic bags.

And being the polite, gum chewing, good looking old guy that I am, (and thinking I would hold the door open), I asked the customer,

"Are you going out?"

The older woman didn't hear me.

I tried again.

"Are you going out?"

Now, the young female cashier glanced at me with a "What's up with you" look, while the person to whom I directed my question was still totally oblivious of me, and my question.

Not getting her attention, I proceeded towards the greeting card display. Now, the man behind the elderly lady, apparently her husband, belatedly said,

"We're good. But thanks."

And then, it occurred to me. When I walked in, and asked, "Are you going out" the obviously startled cashier may well have thought,

"That old geezer wants to know if I have a boyfriend!"

(and)

"That seventy something year old man is about to ask me for a date!"

Of course, that was not my agenda at all.

As a result, as I laid my two greeting cards on the conveyor belt, I said,

"It occurred to me when I asked the older lady if she was going out, and intended to open the door for her, you might have thought I was directly my question to you."

(and)

"I can assure you I am happily married!"

Both the young cashier and I got a good laugh out of the whole thing.

by William McDonald, PhD