Sunday afternoon I found myself waiting for the elevator with my quirky, 80-something year old neighbor, Mrs. B. She is about 4’6″, wears cat’s eye shaped glasses, speaks with a thick Philly accent and never fails to make me laugh when I see her.

“Hi doll, how are you? I’ve already been out today, I’m just running up to get a coat. They said it was going to be so warm out today, and it’s not, it’s chilly. I don’t know what that weatherman is doing, but I don’t think he’s been outside once today.”

Mrs. B doesn’t need much in the way of a response, all she needs is a nod or a murmur of agreement and she’s good to go for another five or six sentences.

“I went down to Lord and Taylor today, to see if they had anything good on clearance. I use Estee Lauder products, my salesgirl, who I’ve been going to for years, told me that there’s nothing left. I tried on a little blouse, but even after the discount, it was still almost $90. To me, not such a bargain. I did buy a few pairs of underwear. I couldn’t find my size, everything was such a mess! I found a girl, a nice salesgirl, and went up to her and asked, ‘Could you help out an old lady?’ Of course she helped me. There has to be some benefit to being an old lady, after all.”

I laughed and told her that I thought she should take as much advantage of being an old lady as she possibly could.

Mrs. B kept talking, and I kept listening, throwing the appropriate reply in every so often. As we got on the elevator, she looked at me with a slightly more serious expression on her face and asked, “Is everything alright with you, honey? You seem a little quiet.” I smiled and told her that I was just fine. I could tell she was dying to ask me if I was dating anyone (she loves to be kept up to date on my love life), but we had reached the lobby by that point and were heading our separate directions.

Running into Mrs. B is always a kick and a pleasure.