It was another lazy day at Famous Footwear and the workers were mindlessly droning on about with their jobs; stocking shoes, playing with the cash register, and some doing their Spanish homework. In the midst of this monotony, an old couple walked in and everyone's head shot up thinking, oh shoot. For once you become a regular worker at the shoe store, you become familiar with the personality types of different shoppers by their age, such as in this case, the elderly senior class are notoriously known to be extremely picky, rude, and just downright a pain to deal with. Not that the workers are unprepared to deal with troublesome customers, mind you, for if you happen to shop there, don't hand them your boxes of shoes and expect them to wait on you hand and foot; no, they will quip back at you for having an arrogant attitude and simply drop everything you handed them. Nontheless, customers are customers, thus they must be treated with the same hospitatlity as everyone else. So the couple progressed to theh cashier and the husband implored with a heavy accent," Could you help my wife find some shoes?"
"Sure, what size does she wear?" a young blonde replied, bracing for the tantrum fits and complaints (the other workers, relieved of the potential troublesome clients returned back to their duties).
"Well I'm not sure, I've had these shoes for awhile but now they're too tight. And my feet have swollen up and gotten really big," the old lady softly described.
"Alright, I'll go get an 8 1/2 wide and we'll figure it out from there." Said the cashier and proceeded to get random choices of shoes from here and there.
When she returned, the worker helped the older woman try on some of the pairs she brought. As the husband assissted his wife take off her curent shoes, the employee noticed that indeed the shoes she was currently wearing were two times too small, and the state of the woman's feet were horridly swelled and bloated; which must of meant excruciating pain up until this point. As the attendant was lost in thought, wondering how this woman before had survived such conditions this whole time, the old lady satisfyingly smiled and told her that the shoes fit much better. Pushing the soft pitying thoughts out of the way the worker smiled and asked if the wife would like to try a size 9 just to compare. Ignorant to world of shoes, the woman agreed and the assistant went off again to hunt for some comfortable sandals. It turned out size 9 wide was much better and as the couple were rejoicing with their find, the worker was trying her hardest to fight back tears while watching her customers. Never had the employee seen such sweet, innocent people who were so amorous of each other and blind to the pains of the world which normally fills people's heads on our never-ending lists of complaints. Wanting to avoid the waterworks, the worker was about to rush the couple to their purchase when the old lady looked up and asked the girl,
"Do you have a pretty face? Because your voice sounds very lovely and you sound like a pretty person." At this the worker just gaped, not only was her senior customer in a wheel chair, but she also turned out to be blind. But before the employee could even think of a reply, again the old woman spoke, this time to her husband, "Sweetie, I want to do our little dance." So the worker once again assisted as an outsider and held the wheelchair as the husband helped his wife slowly get to her feet and they danced. It wasn't much of a dance, more like small shuffles from here to there, but with the romantic songs now ironically playing on the loudspeakers, it was enough to finally cause the young worker to break down.
Afterwards, with the shoes finally having been purchased, the workers watched with tears in their eyes as the old man devotedly helped his wife get into the car then drive off. The female workers by now were almost sobbing and thinking to themselves, I'll never be able to find a husband that sweet. While the workers were sobbing, the manager (having missed the whole action) came out from the back and did a double take of his store, for the atmosphere of the store felt like a funeral with all his employees sobbing and gloomily shifting about. Assuming the worst of what might have happened between workers and customers, he blurted out,"Were they really that bad?"