Truth is Beauty

Blog 09-15-13

 

Two women came in my store on Saturday. One of them was a
regular customer whom I always considered quite beautiful – tall and stately.
Very kind and gentle.  Soft-spoken.  I had estimated her to be about my age,  but while talking at the register discovered
her to be a bit (surprisingly) older. She had a great-grandchild. A GREAT
GRAND-CHILD!

I registered my surprise and asked her what her secret was.
She told me it must be her wrinkle cream. I said “Really? How long have you
been using it?”

She looked at me with her head kind of cocked like she was
thinking real hard. She smiled wryly and said “oh . . . about three days!”

I laughed. And so did she. I told her she looked just as
young and beautiful three weeks ago pre-wrinkle cream . . .

 

Later in the day I had another brush with beauty . . . one
might say.

A much younger woman came in the store. Hmmm . . . I would
guess her age to be early 20’s. She was in the store with another equally
attractive woman about the same age. 
They were immaculately and stylishly dressed for a Saturday afternoon in
a Minot bookstore – and something, I can’t really explain, told me they were
from out of town.  

As she was explaining to me that she was Fargo-nian she
handed me a card that explained why she was in town.  It seemed that she was selling some kind of
band that you put around your stomach that miraculously erases all your fat and
cellulite. Also, as the picture attested, besides giving you six-pack abs it
also gives you a tan. WOW! She was a snake-oil salesman! A real walking/talking
info-mercial in my own little bookstore.

Short of pointing to the door and saying out out out (she
did buy something, after all). I also had the desire to grab her and shake her
and tell her to get a real job and stop selling crap.   I thanked
her and threw away the card after she left. 

I was exposed this day to two, at first glance, beautiful
women –one who was 70 who knew from those extra years of living that when
someone tells her she is beautiful that it isn’t
the wrinkle cream – and one woman who was 45 years younger ( with flawless
skin) who looked at me and thought my 54 years of living didn’t teach me
ANYTHING about beauty (not to mention snake oil).  

There is a moral here – as I often try to find
the moral in all small encounters in my life.  “Truth is Beauty! Beauty is Truth!”  What better place to encounter this than in a
bookstore . . .