you do the math...

one melon plus one melon equals two melons, right? good job bean counter!

good to know that michael can do math. mamma on the other hand gave me a headache about it.

so I decide that I will give dad a break and take mom shopping. do you know me? I don't do shopping. I walk into the gap pick up a pair of jeans, a shirt and cute jacket type thing and we are done. size doesn't change and the price is right. I may not look like I stepped off the cover of vogue, but I am comfortable!

okay so we head out to the bay and start our adventure. mom is a bit slow with the walker and it is tricky manoeuvring around the displays so I rearrange the store to accommodate her walker. it worked! so we find some deals. couple of shirts for dad and three shirts for michael. walk up to the till and ma says she's got it. I say no, no, come now and she says no, I have it. okay. so till lady rings up our order and ma pulls out her wallet. she rifles through the bills. ma carries cash. mostly brown and red ones and a few green, but always cash. so the bill is 171.11 and she pulls out three red ones, a loonie and eleven cents. I say ma, you are short a twenty. do you have any more cash? she starts rifling through her wallet and I soon realize that she is out of bills and I dip into my wallet where thankfully I have my art fund stashed. I normally do not carry cash and most especially not brown ones and red ones.

so done. bill is paid and I say ma, you out of money! and she says, no I have lots of money. I think to myself perhaps she has more hidden that we just didn't take the time to wait for her to pull out. no biggie. we move on to the mall where we walk and I am quite happy just walking. she says, just carry on like I am not even here. go do what you need to do. so thing is that if mom wasn't with me the last thing I would be doing would be walking around a mall shopping. so I keep walking by her side and she says, oh sears! they have good sales. off we go.

we find more deals. seems a warehouse needed to be cleared out and everything was on sale and an additional 50% off if you used your credit card. deal! so we walk up the till and ma once again states, I got it. I don't argue with the lady and she pulls out her wallet and starts rifling and only has coin left. I remind her that if we use our sears card we get an additional 50 % off. she says, oh yeah, okay and pulls out her credit card. but! I want to pay the bill right now, she says. I am a bit confused at the math we have done so far as I thought we (as in her) ran out of cash. the till guy takes her card and we owe about $46.00 so she starts counting out her toonies which at this point I start digging into my art fund again knowing full well that the mamma is out of red ones and brown ones and even green ones and blue ones. ( really people I know the denomination, but I think it is fun for non canadians to play this game)

so I pull out two twenties and her three toonies and bill is paid. I am trying to do the math in my head. don't get me wrong I am fine with paying for my own purchases. of course I am, but she offered and so I am trying in my head to figure out if I am ahead or if she now owes me. in which case I should offer to pay for her purchases. this would give me extra points, no?

anyway as we are walking away from the till mom says, well, I guess we should go home, we have no money left. yes mom, I say, we both are out of money.

I return her home where dad asks how the day went and mom says, boy we sure got some good deals. yes, we sure did.

she is having difficulty walking. not sure if the money thing was confusing because she hasn't had to do it in a couple of months or is that a new symptom. I had to remind myself that we were together and it was awesome no matter what we did or who emptied their wallet faster. I am treasuring these moments more and more each day. mom and I were not exactly close growing up and I think back now to how silly it was.

I think life is like that sometimes. we spend so much time being upset with people for not doing what we think they should be doing when really we should be happy that they are doing period. like when he picks up fruit in the supermarket and you say "nice melons" and laugh. it is a split second, but it was fun and we should all have a little fun on a daily basis.

if you are in town there is tons of fun to be had around here. today we are checking out the farmer's market and then off to make it. and I am sure an iced coffee is in the mix for our decent hot, hot, hot day or maybe a beer?

ciao!