Sea Urchins & House Shoes

"Is it always this crowded in here?" she asked as she squinted at me through her foggy glasses and climbed up in the chair next to me.

"Well if nobody else is wearing one, I'm taking this damn mask off!" she declared as she tossed it on the bar.

My Grandmother reincarnate was at this sushi bar with me.

"Hi, yes, I'll do the double vodka on the rocks. And do you have sea urchin? Please tell me you have sea urchin."

The bartender looked puzzled and said she didn't think it was on the menu today.

"Well that is too bad," she mumbled to herself, "I love sea urchin."

Another bartender came to change out the menus and she said with a gasp, "Don't take that! I am not done ordering."

"Oh, we change out our menus at 3pm, so this is the current one."

"No! I want this menu!"

She ordered her oysters from the less expensive menu. Her eyes perused around the bar and landed on a woman who was telling stories at a high volume. She glared over at her and loudly inquired, "IS THERE ALWAYS A LOUD WOMAN AT EVERY BAR?!"

Once her 18 oysters arrived, she slurped every single one of them down, each time looking at me to tell me something else that annoyed her.

"I wonder if her husband is deaf," she muttered to no one in particular as she picked up her Kindle and began reading who knows what.

"Selena, I guess I'll take an ice water because these vodkas are going down WAY too easily."

She kept calling the bartender Lena "Selena," and commenced to ask every single person at the bar if they'd ever heard a woman talk as much as "that woman on the other side."

After 30 more minutes of comparing PEI oysters to other regions, she ordered a to-go Lobster Roll, for a “late night snack after she cooked dinner for her husband."

I flashed ahead to what I may be like in 40 years. Would I be her? Maybe. She inspired me to then order a dozen oysters and a vodka on the rocks. I'm a new old woman. Next up: house shoes in public.