John Gage glanced at the bottles of Geritol on the shelf as he and his partner Roy DeSoto headed down the health remedy and vitamin aisle of the grocery store in search of a bottle of vitamin C.  Roy had spent his day off at home with a wife and two children all suffering from head colds and was sure the C vitamin would be his answer to holding any germs that may have hopped on board at bay.

Gage furrowed his brow in thought, then questioned, “Hey, Roy?”

“What?”

“I was just thinkin’.”

 “About what?” He was listening, but kept his gaze on the items in front of him as he scanned for the smallest bottle of vitamins available.

John picked up one of the bottles of Geritol. “About gettin’ older.”

Roy glanced at him and grinned. “It’ll be awhile before you need that. You aren’t even thirty yet. Heck, you’re just over twenty-five.”

“No. . .I mean, I know that.” He returned the bottle to the shelf and shrugged. “I was just wonderin’ . . .you know how time goes by faster. Like what we used to be able to do in forty-five minutes might take an hour now. And a week feels more like five days than seven. . .”

“I don’t think anything is gonna stop that. It just seems to happen with age,” Roy said as he selected a bottle of vitamin C and plopped it in the cart with their other groceries. He pushed the cart forward toward the registers.

“Well, yeah, but why does it happen? I mean, is time really goin’ by quicker or are we just slowin’ down? Are we in some sorta time warp where we think were goin at the same pace as before, but in reality we’re not?”

“You’re younger than me and we’re going the same pace.”

John rolled his eyes. “We’re only a coupla years apart. We’d be in the same time warp.”

“Oh.”

“You aren’t takin’ this serious, are ya? Roy, I’m serious! I mean, time just can’t speed up on its own or everyone,” he explained as he  motioned with a circular wave of his arm, “would feel a difference at the same time and we’d all be runnin’ behind.”

“Well, if you ever figure it out, let me know. In the meantime, let’s get back to the station. I’m starved and we’ve got all the ingredients for lunch.”

John didn’t reply, but just stood behind him as a lady in her late sixties checked a customer ahead of them out at the register. He watched as she scanned each item and pushed each down to the bagger waiting patiently at the other end of the counter.

She’s movin’ awful slow, John thought.

After several minutes, the other customer was on her way and Roy quickly loaded their groceries up on the conveyor belt of the counter.

“Oh, firemen!” the cashier exclaimed with a smile when she noticed their uniforms. “Don’t worry, I’ll have you boys out of here just as fast.”

Just as fast as what?

John couldn’t imagine what she was referring to; surely not the customer before them. However, it soon became clear.

“Goodness,” she remarked when she saw another lady already in line behind them, a cart over flowing with groceries. “Looks like I’ll just have to keep up at this pace, doesn’t it? I’ll certainly sleep well tonight!”

Gage’s lower jaw dropped, but he held back his thoughts until he and Roy were on their way out of the store.

“Never mind what I asked about earlier.”

“What was that?”

“The time warp as we get older. I think I just got my answer.”

He glanced over his shoulder and shook his head.

Somethin’ tells me we’ll be buyin’ Geritol instead of vitamin C before we know it.

Note: Geritol was tied in with older age in commercials back in the 1970’s.

This story is dedicated to my sister. :o)

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