compliment

not often i get a compliment.
i was in my local newsagent as ever we chewing the fat and shooting the shit setting the world to rights. we do this a lot. as we jibber and jabbered an austrailian woman came into the shop. she wanted clove cigarettes, he had them, but she says they are more expensive than they were in turkey and that she has to go get some money. we both check her out as she departs, well she was wearing leather trousers.
more chit chat from us.
she returns. ciggies are bought and a quick conversation is struck up. we learn that she went to turkey on holiday with her father, that she has just finished her thesis. she learnt that my newsagent has left his wife and visited his daughter when she spent a year of australia.
she was impressed with the coming and goings of the shop, who can blame her it is the hub of whitechapel, she asked did i come here after work? i had to confess that i was unemployed, she asked why? when i said that one of the reasons was that as i approached 50 it became harder to find work.
"you are not fifty!" she said.
ah how my heart sang.
how happy i was to hear those words.
a compliment.
a few words to treasure.
sweet.

(unless of course she meant i looked seventy-five, oh no, despair and disappointment now. sob.)