Pat West

I met Ms. Pat West in Vons grocery store on a cold night awhile back. To give some background on my mental state, I hate grocery shopping; in fact, I wish I could just be done with the bother of food and get fed through an IV. On this particular night, I was in full-blown whine mode and escalating towards an adult tantrum while my boyfriend pushed me around in the cart and patiently ignored me.

Down the home supplies aisle, I noticed an elderly lady patting her coat pockets and looking on the shelves for something.
She was dressed very nattily, wearing a trench coat over a dress with a pretty silk scarf covering her perfectly curled gray hair. I adore the elderly and they adore me, so I didn’t hesitate to reach out. I motioned for my chauffeur to wheel me forward and asked her if everything was ok. As she turned towards me and smiled, I could instantly tell something was off—her makeup was a bit…loud. (There’s nothing like smeared red lipstick to scream crazy.) “I’ve lost my keys,” she said. “Can you help me find them?” My boyfriend helped me climb out of the cart and we began searching the aisle and her grocery basket. After several minutes of rifling through shelves filled with pregnancy tests, tampons and toilet paper, she exclaimed “Ah ha! I found them!” and triumphantly pulled them from her coat pocket—one of the two total pockets on the coat, which she had been thoroughly searching for the previous ten minutes. At that moment, I fell a soft spot grow in my heart for this batty old biddy.

The lady introduced herself as Ms. Pat West and said she had walked over from her house, which was just across the street, to pick up a few things. I saw a thundercloud darken her face momentarily as she explained, “I would have driven, but they took my wheels. I need my wheels!” and then continued to mumble about how she ought to get her car back soon. While this woman was in absolutely no way competent to drive, she obviously did need “wheels” because her basket was weighed down with a gallon of milk, laundry detergent, raw steaks and various menthol lotions. I instantly volunteered my boyfriend to carry her bags and drive her. She blushed through her heavily rouged cheeks and tried to decline as my boyfriend looked at me with “what the hell are you doing” eyes, but I insisted and told her we’d wait for her at the checkout counter.

Vons was empty that late at night and we ended up in the checkout line right behind Pat. She was in the middle of paying her bill completely in loose change, counting it out with exacting slowness. I normally would have wanted to strangle someone who was doing this, but she’d already become the apple of my eye so I just looked on benevolently. After she paid, she pushed her cart towards the door, paused, and then began circling the store. It was obvious that she had either forgotten that we were directly behind her in line or, more likely, had completely forgotten her general purpose for being at a grocery store. I left my boyfriend to pay (he was spoiled rotten by me that night, wasn’t he?) and went to go corral Ms. Pat West.

We loaded her into our small truck and I sat accordioned in the back seat, silently giggling as she updated him on the latest General Hospital happenings in between giving absentminded directions. I gave us a 50/50 chance of making it to her house. Turns out we did make it and she was not “just across the street.” Pat lived in a condo at least a mile away from Vons and up some very steep hills. I have no idea how she got to the grocery store and don’t want to think how she would have made it home without us. We exchanged numbers while my boyfriend lugged her groceries upstairs and I offered our (his) services whenever she needed them. Pat West was very gracious and said she appreciated our help but considered herself an independent woman. “When I get my wheels back, things like this won’t be a problem,” she said and then waved us off with a promise to visit once the aforementioned “wheels” were back with her, where they belong.