A couple of years ago I was selling my work at a Christmas sale. It was fairly typical, in that much of the work was fairly crafty type stuff, with the odd higher end item here and there. Most of the people attending were in the "elderly" category, to put it kindly. But every now and then a family would show up, with the various teens and youth in tow.
The most enjoyable part of this show, aside from the volunteers organizers, were the folks looking for gifts for their grandkids. They would come up to my booth, stop, and then come out with the most wonderful exclamations that I hadn't heard for many a long year. "Bless my soul." "As I live and breathe." "By gum, I haven't seen chain-mail since Heck was a pup.'
But out of the entire weekend, there was one family that stood out, far and above the rest. It was your typical family with a mom, dad and young teenage son, trying to make the best of the day and seeming to have a hard time doing so. The son, in particular, seemed to be quietly and politely going out of his mind, eagerly counting down the nanoseconds until he could escape this private little jingly hell, even though he obviously loved the time spent with his folks.
Then he saw my booth, and stood transfixed as his parents continued on to the popcorn booth next door.
Chain-mail.
It was like a little nerdy oasis amidst a desert of kitsch.
He must have taken a good 20 minutes to walk from one end of my table to the other, which, if you calculate it, comes out to a zipping .00454545 miles per hour. And he must have been so out of breath walking at such a pace for he was unable to say a single word during this entire episodic trek.
Then he left.
A few minutes later, he came back with his folks in tow.
And the whole escapade was repeated again for my viewing pleasure, but this time in triplicate.
20 minutes. All three of them. In silence.
It must have been genetic.
Now, if that wasn't enough, when they reached the end of their journey, they turned around and did it again, for old time's sake, I guess.
Occasionally, to break the monotony, they would point out one piece or another. All in silence.
And then they left.
Now, during this time, I did say hi to them. I did offer assistance. I said the obligatory greetings, and offered what help I could, but none of it seemed to get through. I began to suspect that they might have been from lower Estonia, and fluent only in Akurio. But that was just a guess. Wrong, as it turned out.
For about half an hour later the mother came running back.
"Can you hide this bracelet", she said, picking one up. "I want to get it for my son, but don't want to risk him seeing it."
I hid it behind a display while she moved to another booth to get out her money. I packed it up, and passed it on to her as she flew by, not looking in my direction, swapping the money for the bag as if she had been trained by the KGB during the Cold War.
I could only smile in appreciation for her successful venture in getting her son a gift without him noticing.
But then, about two minutes later, the son came by. He grabbed a steel bracelet and said, "Can you wrap this for my dad? I'll be back in a minute to pay for it." And like his mom, he surreptitiously went off, swinging back to make that same monetary swap.
This time I was able to get a quick "thank you" in.
I could only laugh, and smile, at the thought of the two of them successfully making their purchases without the others knowing.
But then, two hours later, genetics won out again. The father came by. He looked relieved, and said, "I thought I'd never get away from them. Is there any chance you could wrap this bracelet for my wife? I think it's the only thing she actually liked in this whole show. And she really loved it."
To be honest, I couldn't read what any of them liked as they snailed their way past, but I trusted that they knew each other far better than I did.
So in the end, all three of them had picked up a gift for one of the other three from my booth.
Oh, how I would have loved to have been there on Christmas morning when they each opened their presents.
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