The Pink Pants Woman

Last Friday … before Bunco night with the girls, before I got sick later that night, before spending the next days in bed doing battle with a very obtuse and stubborn flu bug … I went to Costco.

I loaded my cart with the requesite Bunco items — a bag of organic tortilla chips, Costco’s hip bulging, yet oddly satisfying six-layer dip, a bottle of Chardonnay, a tray of assorted muffins (guaranteed not to be lard-laden).  Of course I added a number of other essentials:  a pair of cute little capris, two new light fixtures for the master bath, a giant supply of toilet paper (little did I know), two jars of Gertie’s Artichoke Tapinade, other odds and ends, what-nots and whizits.  Of course, I browsed the book aisle.  Of course!

I checked out and turned toward the exit.  Just ahead of me was an elderly woman, obviously fragile, barely able to push her own enormously-laden cart.  I probably might have noticed how tender she looked, but all I could focus on were her pants — pink sweat pants.

Emblazoned provocatively across the seat were the words, Pink Power Baby.

I’ve never loved anyone like I loved that woman in that moment.  Pink Power Baby.

Her tiny bottom barely filled out those sweat pants, but in spite of her frailty, her significant years, that lovely woman was everything that causes people’s heads to turn.  For all her grey hair and hesitant gait, she still had that “It” factor.

She was the ghost of Marilyn Monroe.  She was future Madonna, Britney Spears, every little girl who wraps herself in Pink, Pink, Pink.

She was who I hope I’ll remember to be when I reach her age.  Her vision is memorized into my psyche now — The Pink Pants Woman from Costco who told me to remember that beauty walks the Costco aisles if only I’m available to notice.