Today’s fabrication

“How do I ask this without hurting yer feelings?” I said that to a lady in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool last Saturday.
She was probably in her 80s. Tuesdays and Thursdays I join an in-pool balance-training class. I go there Saturday myself.
“Are you by any chance a widow?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Then you should eat out with us,” I said. “I’m a widower, a friend is a widow, and we have been joined by others. We were eating out with another widower, but he fell and was hospitalized.
You flash that smile, and you’ll light up the room,” I said.
“Twinkling eyes; I wish I could do that. I had a dreadful childhood, which makes smiling hard. I can’t do it by request.
You don’t hafta eat alone, or with other geezers. You could eat with us geezers. I’m almost 75, and the others are 64 and 63. We all pay for our meals; once a week at a local restaurant. That saves me cooking a meal.”
“I can’t afford a restaurant,” the lady said.
“Well I can! I can pay for yer meal as long as you don’t consider it a date. I got money coming out my ears.”
“I can’t get out easily.”
“I’ll pick you up,” I said. “You smile like that and you’ll light up the restaurant!
You also can pay me back, if you wish. But you shouldn’t hafta eat by yerself.”

• RE: “Today’s fabrication.....” —You could say I ran out of material. This event didn’t actually happen. But I did strike up a conversation with an older lady in the YMCA pool whose smile would light up a room.