Today is Malcom’s birthday and we went to a nearby bank to change the coins and notes that he and Brenda had been saving for a while in a glass container. It’s not a “knob” (jar) as we say in Cuba. Or it is but with an electronic lock that allows it to count the savings. It’s like a miniature bank. In the bank we are tax-free, but they don’t change it, that dependence has ceased to be.
They do it at a supermarket, and I feel strange writing these words new for me. Malcom and the girl who smilingly helps him complete the transaction. I’m left out for the first time. Malcom receives an envelope with the amount accumulated.
This is a different Malcom-birthday. We even go to an Office Max because he’s going nuts for a Tablet (the cheap one, eh?) and we’re going to buy it. The clerk settles me in the line and two ladies clutch their purses between their arms and hips. A boy fidgets for a bit until Malcom comes and they talk. He has come for his iPad.
The clerk asks me for my ID and related things. Surprisingly, I don’t have to participate in the transaction because the almost teenage clerk and my barely 10-year-old son understand each other wonderfully and my inadequate English would only get in the way of this just created relationship. They’ve become pals in the store (so to speak), the girl wishes a long life (to the device) and that the boy will enjoy it.
We have a new lodger. We don’t talk for two hours because it’s hard, today, to pull him away from the wonder.
23 September 2013
