Line-Dancing At the Cashier

I used to find it irritating        
when an old person ahead    
of me in the checkout line  
        
waited until every last item        
was rung up before          
remembering checkbook and pen.     
       
How it took them        
forever to fill the damn thing out        
before carefully folding  
        
and tearing it out  
along the serrated line              
so very, very carefully.        
         
Any old time, grandma.        
   
Or the old men who        
did the same schtick  
with their wallets which they called  
        
billfolds, often the kind with zippers        
and how they struggled to remember        
just how the damn thing worked      
         
while I’m right there behind    
them tapping my foot              
with little squiggly lines  
        
coming out each ear        
indicating smoke, considering  
the benefits of euthanasia.             
         
But now I find myself        
pushing eighty here       
in the checkout line    
       
myopically viewing the tabloid        
scandals of celebrities         
I no longer recognize     
        
and the first thing you know        
I’m already there        
with the cashier looking    
       
at me intently       
a question mark        
hovering over her head   
      
with this young guy right        
behind me, smoke squiggles  
coming out his ears

Right on cue
he perfectly forces a smile
as his tapping foot says his lines       
         
and I finally realize    
why those old guys        
from back in the day        
   
were so slow        
and I have this almost        
overwhelming need  
       
to tell that young man  
a great and wondrous  
secret, that time casts us all     
   
in interchangeable roles        
and that he, too, will someday        
hobble onto the stage of understanding. 

and find himself with zippered billfold
playing me in the drama
of line-dancing with variations.
   
But that would take time  
and he's in a hurry  
so of course I don't.        
     
       
       
Written 20 April 2023  Edited 11 January 2024