Jimmie

Jimmie is one of our goofiest customers. He is 70’ish, dressed typically in a dirty t-shirt, poorly or unshaven, scruffy hair. He drives a very old, very beat-up truck that you can hear coming before it pulls into the lot. No one in his family, including their two grown kids who live at home, can ever afford to get very much gas at one time, so we see them at the gas station one or (often) more times a day.

Jimmie is prone to making the same tired little jokes

· Ordering his cig’s, “Give me a pack of them lung-busters.”
· Asked how he’s doing, “I’d say I’m pretty good, but I ain’t a bit pretty.”
· Or “The old lady’s gone, so I’m doin’ good.”

He typically has a kind of vacant look about him that leaves me wondering just where he’s really at, anyway? His wife, Ann, seems so much more with it that I sometimes wonder just what keeps them together.

Tonight, Jimmie was at the outside pump, filling up Ann's new-to-her little, relatively less beat-up red car, while she came over to the window to pay. Then, when their car was full, I suddenly saw Jimmie at the pump directly in front of me, helping a woman with a walker who was having a hard time using her credit card at the pump. I asked Ann if he knew this lady – I was sure he must, from the way he went over to help her.

Ann said, “No, she was having trouble, so he went over. That’s how he is. He just can’t see anybody having a hard time without trying to help them.”

Go figure….

Next day: Jimmie comes to the window and I mention him helping that lady.
“Hey, that was really nice of you.”
“Well, she needed help.”
“Ann says you do that kind of thing a lot.”
“Well, you never know when you’re going to need their help.”

So much for “vacant”… how much more is going on under the hood with this guy that his manner does not tip off?