I'm so glad I did.
Gramps put his stuff on the belt and shuffles up to where he's right in front of the cashier and at the top of his lungs introduces himself because manners count, right? He's obviously hard of hearing because like I said, he's seeing 90 in the rearview and objects are NOT closer than they appear in that mirror.
Before Denise rings him up, he motions to her like he's got a secret to tell her and she leans in, then he shouts to her, "My wife does all the shopping but she's been feeling poorly lately, so she sent me down with this here banking card. I don't know how to use it. Can you help me?" He's hollering so loudly that it is no longer a secret to anybody in the entire store.
Denise smiles and hollers back, "Yessir, I'll be more than happy to help you." She rings him up, then steps over next to him and shows him which way to put the card in, then she asks, "Did your wife write down 4 numbers for you by any chance?" and he nods, reaches into his overalls pocket and pulls out a piece of scrap paper and tries to hand to her. She tells him no, don't show anybody those numbers, it's a secret code to his bank account, then shows him how to punch them in and tells him to wait until the keypad says Transaction Approved before he takes his card out.
He gets it on the first try. The receipt prints, Denise hands it and his bag of Ensure and sausage to him and hollers, "Thank you, sir. Have a good rest of your day."
Gramps is incredulous. "That's it? We done?" he shouts.
Denise smiles and says, "Yessir. Real easy, wasn't it?"
He turns and looks at me and his incredulous look is quickly turning to outrage. His mouth is open and all three of his bottom teeth are showing. "Well, hellfire," he blasts to the entire store, "Now I know why we're so goddamned broke nowadays if she can spend our money that easy," then he shuffles out of the store muttering that now he knows why that old woman of his insists on doing all the shopping.
The entire time, I'm standing there with a blank expression on my face because I know if I try to smile or talk, I'm going to start laughing and I don't want to be rude, right?
As soon as he cleared the doors and I do mean 2 half-steps out, I busted out laughing along with Denise, Todd the manager who was in his office, and everybody else in the store.
Then I piped up and said "We really shouldn't be laughing at the old boy. Why, I can remember my confusion the first time I used a bank card - forty years ago," which sent everybody back into peals of laughter again.
