Advice From an Old Sailor Outside Old Navy

I got a lotta muscles but I only got one eye
I never hurts nobody and I never tell a lie.

As I composed my thoughts for this blog, a burly person with “I AM WHAT I AM” tattooed in bold letters on their right forearm sat across from me.  No, it wasn’t my wife.  It was a guy I’d never met, though I readily determined we had at least two things in common: 

1.     An admiration for Popeye the sailor man.  (I yam what I yam and that’s all what I yam); and 

2.     A penchant for finding a comfortable chair while our wives shop.

 

My chair was just outside the entrance to Old Navy in Orlando’s Florida Mall.  Old Navy must be a genetic thing in my family.   My grandson recently shared a picture of a city he had designed & drawn on paper with crayons.  Pointing out the landmarks to me, he explained “Here is the church, here is the school, and here is Old Navy.”  The Florida Mall has 249 stores in addition to Old Navy, from A 2 Z Toys to Zumiez, a “skateboard/snowboard/clothing for people 50 years younger than me store."   The Florida Mall attracts 20,000,000 visitors a year, half of whom chose the same day to visit that we did.  The 510 room Florida Hotel is attached to the Florida Mall for those too weary to make it home after a hard days shopping.   I have learned to pace myself while shopping with my wife, thus the easy chair outside Old Navy.

Though it is only mid-November, Silver Bells played over the mall’s sound system.  “Silver bells, silver bells, It’s Christmas time in the city!”  Not really.  Thanksgiving is still a couple of weeks away.  Though I find it hard to get in the Christmas spirit when it is 78 degrees and the palm trees sway in the breeze, I am trying hard to adapt.

The burly Popeye fan across from me vacated his chair and it was soon taken by a weary grandmother pushing a stroller.  The two-year-old kid occupying the stroller eyed me suspiciously and began to make some noise.  “Don’t mind him” said the grandmother.  “He is in his terrible two’s!”  The kid spotted my package from the M&M store.  “Sorry kid, these are going to melt in my mouth, not yours” I thought to myself.   Under the kid’s steady gaze I selected a white, coconut-flavored M&M from my .86 pound (at $12.99 a pound) bag and popped it into my mouth.  The kid reacted quickly.  He arose from his stroller and created such a clatter his grandma sprang from her chair to see what was the matter!  Oops.  Sorry.  It must have been the Christmas music over the P.A. system that got me writing like Clement Moore.   Grandma then used the wisdom that comes with age to resolve the situation – she took the kid back to his parents, somewhere deep in the bowels of Old Navy.

When my wife appeared, she announced  “I want to go to Pandora.”  The good news was that the Pandora store is the same mall.  The bad news is (A) It is in a different zip code in the same sprawling mall; and (B) It is a jewelry store.  As we began the long trek, I began to ponder “What would Popeye do?”  Just then, more of Popeye’s words of wisdom came to me:  “I’m strong to the finish ‘cause I eat’s me spinach!” 

Taking a green peanut M&M from my bag, I popped it into my mouth.

Close enough.