The Price is NOT Right

I feel like I have been on the constant go lately. Today I took my paternal grandmother shopping so that she could purchase birthday and Christmas gifts for my children, and that is generally an event that wears me out. I am not used to walking slow, and my grandmother just can't walk much past a snail's pace these days. I do a lot of looping when we shop. I walk ahead, survey the layout and what direction we want to go, looking for possible shortcuts. Then I loop back to check on Grandma's progress. Today while we shopped at a department store, she seemed to be in an "out of sorts" mood. She ranted and raved about how there was nothing cute, about the price of clothes these days, and how children will have to start going naked because parents will never be able to afford the prices of clothing. I refrained from mentioning that the stores she prefers, jack up the prices, so they can put them on "sale" for a normal price. Instead, I just let her get it out of her system. On the way out of the store, I paused to spray myself with some of my favorite perfume, and my grandmother asked that I spray her too. She asked what kind of perfume it was, and how much it cost. In the midst of her mini-conniption fit upon hearing the price, the sales woman behind the perfume counter made the ill-fated mistake of leaving her post and targeting my grandmother for a potential sale. In the moment of her approach I thought about waving her away to give her an out, but she had ears, she could hear my grandmother's commentary. If she was crazy enough to take her on, who was I to deter her? The first thing out of my grandmother's mouth was that she couldn't believe how expensive the perfume was. She also wanted to know who actually bought perfume that expensive. Then she gave her naked children speech to the perfume lady. Yes, I started inching away during that part of the conversation. Not cluing in that she should dispense any hope of a sale, the lady persisted in showing my grandmother the less expensive smaller perfume bottle option, still around $50. My grandmother looked at the lady like she was daft and said, "Honey, can you see how old I am? I will be dead before I even have time to use that whole bottle up!" At this point the perfume lady looked to me for a rescue, her eyebrows were raised as if to say, "You can interject anytime now". I smiled amicably and said, "Well, Grandma, I am going to get the car. I will pick you up at the door. You just head that way when you finish." I suppose I should have dragged her along with me, but she doesn't get out much. This may be the only new person she could complain to for weeks, and anything that gives the rest of us a break is worth it!