Have a Day (Happy)
Everyone has their own way of reaching out during a pandemic. Some just involve throwing gum at seniors.
Early last summer when the virus reemerged even worse than before, people tried finding safe ways to connect with those most vulnerable. I ended up involved in one of those ways by virtue of an outdoor parade at a retirement community. Paris and I stood, mask on, among a crowd of volunteers on a street corner. Encouraging sign in hand, I found myself once again asking, How did I get here?
The community’s activities director had solicited volunteers from a post on Facebook. When we arrived that afternoon, the director met us outside, her face covered by a bright pink mask. She stood beside a speaker on wheels the size of a carry-on suitcase.
Her father was there, too. His car decked out in a handful of American flags, he asked if we “also” went to church with his daughter. This question explained the other volunteers standing around, two with handmade signs, and one with a bunch of balloons.
It also confirmed for me that my choice of sign wording: “Stay Safe! Stay Strong! God Bless!” was on-brand with the crowd we found ourselves in. Not that I would have otherwise written, “Hail Satan!” or anything. But it did take a few choices off the table including, “Life is Short, Hump Around!” or “YOLO!”
I explained, no, we were not from church, but Facebook friends. The director told the now sweaty crowd of sign bearers that we were waiting for “just a few more” volunteers to arrive. A few minutes later, two couples approached, waving, from down the block.
Aside from the heat, it wasn’t a bad place to wait. This retirement community, I should mention, was not a dilapidated dumping ground for unwanted grandparents. This was basically a luxury resort with four stories of residences and countless amenities. As we were driving in, Paris and I marveled at the immaculate landscaping and surrounding fountains and statues.
“Even rich older people need visitors,” I said, rationalizing our mission.
“Agreed,” Paris said. “Age doesn’t care about money. It’s the one thing that gets us all.”
Of the two couples arriving, one was younger and looked like an alternate universe version of Paris and me. The other was older than us, likely in their early fifties. Throughout the rest of the afternoon, I would never once hear the man speak. His wife, on the other hand, would not stop talking. She had a close-cropped blonde bob and sunglasses with rhinestones. She wore a white linen shirt with cropped jeans and platform sandals. She was also, most notably, not wearing a mask.
“I hope I don’t COVID anybody,” she said with a laugh, using the highly contagious virus that is spread by breathing as a verb.
As the parade began, we marched forward with the music from the suitcase speaker blaring. I noticed the maskless blonde woman had two plastic packages in her hand. They were five-packs of gum, one Juicy Fruit and the other Big Red.
Walking past the residents on their patios and balconies, the woman began hurling the gum packets at them. Curious geriatrics would crack their doors only to be met with a blasting rendition of “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch” and pelted with purse gum.
“Didn’t quite make that one,” I said of a Big Red pack that came to a stop on the ground below a woman in a house dress peering down from a second-floor balcony. The blonde stuck her hand in her purse and pulled out more gum that she thrust into my hand.
“You throw some,” she said. She walked quickly ahead to bean a small fragile woman with some Juicy Fruit. We’d only just met, yet she expected me to participate in this absurd reverse Mardi Gras parade.
“God really provided for us with the weather today,” she called out gleefully. Yes, what fun would it be to aim candy at grandparents if you had to balance an umbrella in the other hand while doing it?
“Hey!” she called out to the director. “Hey! Hey! Change the song! Play some ‘Good Vibrations’ why don’t you?”
The director was being blasted in the ears by the speaker but managed to turn her head and catch Gum Lady’s wild arms waving. “CHANGE! THE! SONG! Play something more upbeat!” The director gave a thumbs up and pulled out her phone.
Suddenly the clink and chant of Sam Cooke’s “Chain Gang” began.
“Not the song I would have chosen,” I said to Paris. “But ok.”
The woman with the gum was not enjoying this jam either. “Hey!” she called out again. “Change the song!” The song changed again, this time to the “YMCA” which seemed to get her engine revved. She started dance-walking.
I want to tell you now that this next part makes me sound like an asshole. This lady was really excited about the parade. She was overjoyed to be out in the world, screaming with no mask on, whipping chewing gum at people. In my defense, it was about 95 degrees out there. I had not seen more than a handful of any human beings in months. The sun was bright. The music was loud. Therefore it was inevitable that I would decide in that moment that I hated her.
As we rounded the corner, we came upon a large puddle and all navigated our way around it.
“Look, you guys,” Gum Lady yelled while walking near the puddle. She had taken a break from her aggressive candy distribution and was now waving her homemade sign she had taken from her husband’s hands. “Look! They’ve got a pool!” she joked.
Would someone shut her up? I thought. The Lord had delivered on the weather. Was it too much to ask for another miracle?
I turned my head toward Paris, probably about to say something snarky, when behind us, I heard a splash.
The woman was fully on her back in the “pool” she had discovered, jeans and white linen shirt drenched. The sign she had been holding was floating face down in the water. Pockets full of now-soggy gum, ruined. I felt a gut punch of secondhand embarrassment for her with a side of shame for my own shitty thoughts.
Paris sprinted over to help, but she refused his outstretched hand. Instead, she plunged her hand in the water and pulled out her sign.
“I’m fine. I’m totally fine,” she said, laughing and steadying herself. “Here, you carry this now.” She thrust the sign into Paris’s hands before standing up and dusting herself off. She was perhaps a little embarrassed but not injured. My heart softened to her as I watched her shake the water from her foam platform flip flops.
Paris held the dripping poster board away from his body and tried showing it to the residents watching from their balconies. They leaned forward and squinted at its running ink.
The left side of the woman’s sign read, “Have a Day!” Next to that, she had drawn a traditional smiley face. Beneath it all, she had written “HAPPY!”
Paris smiled at me under his mask and held the sign for me to read. Have a day we did, and we were happy.
