The Avon Lady

My mother had an “Avon Lady” who came to our house nearly every month for over 20 years. She was short, wrinkled and told the same seven or eight stories over and over. Most of them were about her “lazy, do-nothin’ %#@* kids”. But she also had a few about me and my sisters. She had watched us all grow up and loved to remind me of the time when I was two years old and I triumphantly brought my training potty out into the living room to show her that I had used it for its intended purpose. She would often use this as a segway to recycle tales of her disappointing offspring. “And speaking of sh**...did I tell you what my knuckle-headed grandson did?” In a way, I miss this bitter old woman. She certainly made my parents more thankful for intelligent, law-abiding children.

So, now that you understand my nostalgic ties to the Avon company, perhaps you can better appreciate the predicament I found myself in this afternoon.

The first real snow of the season had fallen overnight and, rather than attending to more important and pressing matters, I chose to go shovel the walk at about 10 am. Then, I figured I might as well clean off my car and my roommate’s car (I can be really productive when I’m procrastinating!). While doing so, I noticed somebody limping to the laundry room. Once I saw her face, I remembered meeting her a few days after we moved in to this apartment. One Sunday afternoon, she was standing in the driveway of our complex with her thumb out. I recall thinking, “Huh. I’ve never seen a hitch hiker on a residential street before. Odd.” But she was an older woman with a cane, so I figured the threat level was pretty low. We pulled over and asked her where she needed to go and she requested a ride to the Baptist church a few blocks away. During our brief conversation on the way there, it quickly became clear that she had a cognitive disability of some kind. She thanked us profusely for the ride and I hadn’t seen her since.

I waved, to be polite....and the next thing I knew, she was in my apartment with an Avon catalogue. I flipped through the pages, looking for inexpensive Christmas gifts for my nieces while she talked about various health issues she has recently experienced. I settled on some holiday lip glosses and lotions totaling about $10...actually, $9.90 to be exact. I knew this because I had filled out my own sales receipt since she had difficulty sequencing the item numbers. Then came the math....

She removed an impressively large calculator from her bag. Then she left her seat on the couch to sprawl out on the living room floor and began the painfully long process of determining the sum. For approximately the next 15 minutes I heard: “Point nine-nine...PLUS....point nine-nine....PLUS...point nine-nine...PLUS...nine point nine....oh...uh...oops. Better start over”. I tried to show her a faster way using multiplication (.99 x 10=9.90) but she became agitated and pulled the calculator out of my hands. “No, let me do it! I can do it!” I had inadvertently offended her. Her mannerisms reminded me of the small children I work with who get upset any time I deny them independence. I smiled and said, “Alright. Go ahead.” And so it began again. “Point nine-nine...PLUS....point nine-nine....PLUS...point nine-nine...PLUS...nine point nine....oh...uh...oops. Better start over”.

So, I left her to her addition and went to go get the exact amount of money I hoped would eventually show up on her calculator screen. From down the hall I heard. “Point nine-nine...PLUS....point nine-nine....PLUS...point nine-nine...PLUS...nine point nine....oh...uh...oops. Oh darn.” There was a shakiness creeping into her voice . She was flustered. Also, the ill-fitting track suit she was wearing had shifted. A lot. There was an uncomfortable amount of flesh toppling out of the mid-section. The whole scene was unsettling.

Eventually, she allowed me to help her with the calculation and complete the form. I paid her in cash, thinking this would end our meeting. I was wrong. She decided to call in the order while she was thinking about it. Another 15 minutes later, I was ready go back to my day. I helped her gather her things and assisted her to get up from the floor....a process which was more complicated and exposed more flesh than expected. She thanked me again all the way down the front steps. “I’ll be back!” she called over her shoulder. Looks like I have an Avon Lady.