NOSTRADAMUS May 2024

My dad and I devoted the weekend to the garden and flowers.  We are slowly moving the plants from our winter garden to the front of the house after winter.  We bought several bags of quality soil and new flowers at Home Depot.  We mainly put geraniums in a box under the windows.  We also had to buy some new flower pots, but they seemed overpriced to us at Home Depot.  So we went shopping at IKEA, where we discovered beautiful glazed flower pots that we liked.  We loaded our new flowers into the shopping cart and proceeded to the checkout.

  IKEA switched completely to self-service checkouts, so we had no choice but to adapt.  Anyone who goes to IKEA knows that payment takes place on several streets, with four cash registers on each street.  There are two in a row on each side, and one IKEA employee stands at the end and takes care of quick checkout at all four checkouts or helps with problems with scanning goods.  After a short wait, the cash register, which was second in line and close to the exit, became available.  A very pretty middle-aged woman was in charge of our four cash registers.  And things started to happen.  Dad suddenly stood up straight, and it seemed to me that he was a bit taller than the six feet indicated on the driver's license.  Even his chest somehow bulged out, and his one-pack miraculously changed into a flat belly.  I suspected he was breathing at all.  All this could mean only one thing: even he noticed the lovely lady.  The most significant change was in his face.  A boyish smile replaced the severe face.  Well, smile.  More precisely, from my point of view, Dad was smiling rather stupidly.  He'd probably laugh all over his head if he didn't have ears.  I looked at the IKEA employee; she was smiling sweetly, too.  A thought crossed my head: "Spring is here in full force." But somehow, something didn't sit right with me about the whole situation.  Then came the turning point of truth: Dad put on his glasses.  He probably wanted to impress even more because the glasses supposedly add at least 5 IQ points to everyone.  But the truth is, and Dad still doesn't want to admit it, that he's starting to be blind as hell without his glasses.  So he put on his glasses, still smiling, looked at the IKEA employee again and stopped.  He discovered with horror that the pretty employee was not smiling at him, but behind him, at the cash register behind us.  Dad turned and drained his cup of bitterness.  At the checkout behind us was scanning his goods, a rather well-built, as my Mom would say, a young thoroughbred stallion who probably also sleeps in the gym.  Dad understood immediately; his height returned to six feet again, and most importantly, he stopped scanning me and my clothes where the scanner couldn't find any price tag.  Of course.  He quickly scanned our goods, we paid, and we set off to the car with a brisk step.  Dad commented on the whole situation like this: "You know, you women have such an infallible radar inside you, and you can recognize males with high testosterone levels with absolute certainty. I only have a high cholesterol level. Which is also visible on your radar, unfortunately." I wanted to support my Dad a little bit, but I remembered how my Mom often told me: "You know, girl, there are two infinite things in the world. And that is the universe and male vanity."

      So I didn't say anything, and I was convinced that my Dad would recover from the shock by the evening. On the contrary, he would justify his loss in such a way that it would be his victory. And I didn't even have to wait until the evening; we hadn't even reached the house yet, and Dad didn't disappoint; his male vanity didn't disappoint. "You know, I am 100% sure that the lady at IKEA had bad character traits!"

WOW, even the famous Nostradamus would turn pale with envy. I didn't say anything and turned my head to the side. So that Dad doesn't see that this time, I'm laughing almost all over my head.