Thursday, September 15, 2011

My Son...He Died

As soon as I walked in the door this morning my boss greets me by telling me to help the woman in camera. Anyone who comes in that early needing special attention is usually difficult. I told her to wait while I clocked in (at 8am on the dot!).
She shows me a picture of a young man and woman standing in front of a sweet ride. They are dressed up and she is wearing a corsage and I assume it is a prom-type picture. She proceeds to tell me in broken English she wants a 4x6 of the image (it was a little bigger than wallet-size) and she wants the woman cropped out. I told her I would see what I could do. I head over to the scanner and realize it is broken (surprise, surprise) and as I'm going to the other one she tells me the man in the picture is her son. As I was about to tell her how handsome he is, she says he died. She starts tearing up. While I am trying to crop the woman in the photo out as best I can, I realize this woman has now started to cry. Although her English is broken, I am able to understand that her son has died about a year ago, on the 17th. She has other images she wants to enlarge and her husband had told her not to bother coming in because he says no one would understand her because her English is so bad. I finally get the image up, and I am starting to crop, and she realizes that it would be impossible to cut the woman in the photo out without cutting off some of her son's leg off because they are standing so close together. She tells me that she does not know what has happened to the woman, she has her own future.
As she is realizing that perhaps our scanners cannot work photographic materials, she says she does not want me to try any further. I give her the geographic location of a nearby camera shop. She asks how much she owes for the services I have rendered. I told her nothing because I really didn't do anything. She thanks me and goes shopping.
About twenty minutes later she comes to my register with six pencil eyeliners (she does the cat-eye like me!), eight pairs of knee-highs and a Giant Hershey Almond Chocolate Bar. I ring her up for everything and she gives me the chocolate bar. She says "Its for you. For being so nice and sweet!" I thank her repeatedly, because I love my chocolate. As she is leaving she tells me not to drive to fast. I am assuming her son died in a car accident.

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