Two Friends and a Bottle of Sherry

I have a friend named Bessie Mae, that comes over and drinks coffee with me each morning, and we sit around the table with our coffees and talk about our ailments—I’m ninety and she’s eighty—so we have a lot to talk about.

Anyway, sometimes we talk about other things, like our kids and recipes, and stuff like that.  So one morning we got to talking about a recipe for a sherry cake. Let me tell you, that is one delicious cake, but I’ve never made one myself because I don’t keep sherry in my pantry—at least not real sherry, and that’s what the recipe calls for.

Well, the more we talked about how good it was, the hungrier we got for that cake, so we decided we’d run out to the liquor store out on the highway—well of course I don’t mean we were going to really run out there—we’re not that lively anymore. In fact, we don’t walk too well, but you know, it gets pretty boring just sitting around all the time, even if you do have a new ailment to talk about every day, so we decided we’d just make a little trip to the liquor store—in Bessie Mae’s car, of course. I don’t drive nowadays.

It’s not because I can’t—I just didn’t want to fool with taking a driving test again. My gosh, I took one a few years back—well, I reckon it was about seventy years ago, but anyway, I’ve parked my car for awhile. I may change my mind about taking that test, though. It’s just that I don’t hear too well and might irritate the trooper if I kept on driving after he said stop.

Oh well. Back to our trip to the liquor story. I got my walker, and Bessie Mae got her cane—she’s younger than I, remember, and she’s one lively lady. I think it’s because of her red hair. Anyone with hair that red just has to be lively.  Come to think about it, I don’t remember her hair being red when she was younger

Oh well, back to our trip to the liquor store. It wasn’t far, so we made the trip without any problems. One guy kept honking at us, but we didn’t pay him any attention. We just figured he was trying to get Bessie Mae’s attention on account of her hair. She has that effect on guys, you know.

Well, anyway, here we were at the store, so we parked---well actually we parked several times. Bessie Mae kept ending up kinda catawampus with the lines. But she finally got parked straight enough so nobody would bump in to us—she’s had her left fender repaired three times because of the careless way people park.

We had a little trouble at the door. I can tell you it’s not easy to hold a walker and open one of these heavy doors some stores seem to like nowadays. And then the darn thing kept trying to close before I could get out of the way.

So there we were, and I can tell you that there were so many bottles we didn’t know which way to turn, No one paid us any attention, until my walker knocked a couple of bottles off a shelf. That’s when a clerk came over and offered to help us.

When we told him we needed a bottle of sherry so we could make a sherry cake, he tried to tell us we needed cooking sherry. When we told him the recipe called for real sherry, he just shrugged and pointed to another aisle and said “Take your pick, ladies.” and walked away.

Well, I thought he could’ve been more helpful, but that’s the way it is nowadays. Anyway, we found the sherry without any more help, but we had no idea there were so many kinds. Finally, Bessie Mae picked out a bottle she thought was pretty and said “Let’s get out of here,” so we paid and left. No body asked us to come back, which I thought was a little rude, but it really didn’t matter, because I had no intention of ever visiting that place again.

I think Bessie Mae was a little annoyed, though, but she didn’t let it affect her driving. She obeyed the speed limit and didn’t get distracted by all those people that honked and waved to get her attention. They all seemed to be in a hurry and looked like they were out of sorts about something, so we were glad to get back home and take a little sip of that sherry.

That cake can wait until another day.

Happily,

Dannie
(hm-mm)