Errand Day

Wednesday was errand day. Dudley wasn’t entirely sure why errands required their own day, but he had learned that retirement worked better when certain things happened at approximately predictable times.

Betty made the list. Dudley drove. This was the system.

On this particular Wednesday, the list required Costco, Home Depot and the grocery store.

Dudley considered this an ambitious three-store itinerary.

Betty considered it Wednesday.

They started at Costco.

One of the things Dudley had discovered about shopping on a weekday morning was that there were a lot of old people. Apparently, while he had spent more than thirty years working, an entire parallel economy had been operating between ten in the morning and two in the afternoon.

There were old people at Costco, Home Depot and the grocery store. Old couples were everywhere.

Dudley liked watching them.

One couple moved slowly through Costco together. The husband pushed the cart. His wife had the list.

Dudley nudged Betty.

“That’s us in fifteen years.”

Betty looked at them.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He knows where he’s going.”

Another couple stood studying an enormous package of something that no two people could reasonably consume before expiration. The husband said something. The wife shook her head.

He put it back.

Dudley nodded respectfully.

“Experienced team.”

Betty kept walking.

An older woman was trying to pull open one of the heavy doors while maneuvering her cart. Dudley grabbed it.

“Here you go.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“No problem.”

And it wasn’t.

Dudley wasn’t late. He didn’t have a conference call in twenty minutes or an email waiting for him. Nobody was going to ask why he wasn’t back at his desk. He had nowhere else to be.

They worked their way through Costco slowly, although not entirely by choice. A man had stopped his cart in the middle of an aisle to study a package, leaving no way around him.

Dudley waited.

For most of his adult life, this would have irritated him. He would have looked for an opening or performed the tight-lipped Midwestern maneuver that technically qualified as politeness while communicating that someone was standing exactly where they should not be standing.

Today he just waited.

The man eventually noticed.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“You’re fine.”

And he was.

Dudley wasn’t sure when that had happened.

At Home Depot, they encountered an older man staring at furnace filters.

There were approximately four hundred furnace filters, and Dudley understood the man’s problem. Buying one now seemed to require the dimensions, a MERV rating, allergen preferences and possibly blood type.

The man picked one up, read it, put it back and picked up another.

Dudley stopped.

Betty kept walking for three steps before realizing he wasn’t beside her. She turned and saw him looking at the filters.

She knew that look.

“No.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Keep moving.”

“He might need help.”

“He might.”

“I know furnace filters.”

“I’m sure you’re very proud.”

The man looked over.

“Do you know what the difference is between these?”

Betty closed her eyes.

Dudley smiled.

“As a matter of fact…”

Betty went to look at flowers.

By the time Dudley found her, the man had a furnace filter and Dudley had acquired information about his furnace, his house, his late wife and the outrageous price of everything.

“Make a friend?” Betty asked.

“His furnace takes a sixteen by twenty-five.”

“Good to know.”

“He was buying the wrong one.”

“Then you saved the day.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“I would.”

Dudley put something in the cart.

Betty looked at it.

“What’s that?”

“I need it.”

“What is it?”

Dudley looked at the package.

“I’ll explain later.”

Betty knew what that meant.

Next was the grocery store. Halfway through the store, an older woman held a package at arm’s length, then closer, then farther away again.

Betty noticed.

“Do you want me to read that for you?”

The woman laughed.

“Would you?”

Betty read the label. The woman asked about the sodium.

Betty found it.

“Oh, that’s terrible.”

Betty smiled.

“It is kind of a lot.”

The woman put it back.

“Thank you, honey.”

“You’re welcome.”

Dudley looked at Betty.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He smiled.

At checkout, the woman ahead of them had actual paper coupons. One wouldn’t scan, so the clerk tried again and eventually called someone over.

Dudley waited. He did not look at his watch, sigh or investigate whether another lane was moving faster. Eventually the coupon worked.

The woman apologized.

“Sorry.”

Dudley shook his head.

“You’re fine.”

The clerk started scanning their groceries.

“How are you doing today?” Betty asked her.

“I’m good. How are you?”

“Good.”

They talked for a minute about nothing important—the weather, how busy the store was, something Betty had bought that the clerk liked.

When they finished, Dudley thanked her.

“You guys have a good day.”

“You too.”

Outside, they loaded the groceries into the car. There was a cart beside the next parking space, so Dudley grabbed it.

Betty looked at him.

“That’s not ours.”

“I know.”

He pushed both carts toward the return.

When he came back, Betty was watching him.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

They drove home.

It had taken most of the day.

Three stores. A furnace-filter consultation. A food label. A coupon. A door. A couple of shopping carts.

They hadn’t accomplished anything particularly important. Nobody had been rescued. They hadn’t donated money or volunteered. They hadn’t even planned to help anyone.

They had just gone shopping.

But Dudley had enjoyed the day.

He thought about the old couples at Costco and could see himself and Betty in them someday. A little slower. A little grayer. Betty still holding the list. Dudley still wandering away at Home Depot.

For most of his life, Dudley had been trying to get somewhere. Work. Home. A meeting. A kid’s event. Dinner. An appointment. There was always a next thing, and everyone between him and it seemed to be moving too slowly.

Now Dudley had Wednesday.

All of it.

He had time to hold a door, wait in an aisle, help somebody find a furnace filter and return a cart that wasn’t his.

He had spent decades trying to accumulate enough money to have more time.

Now he had some.

It seemed a shame to be in such a hurry with it.