Adele

I met Adele in front of

the 99-cent Store on Sunset Boulevard

on a Monday night in Silverlake, down the

street from the El Cid. At the 99-cent store, everything

for sale costs 99-cents. I stopped in to buy my son

a present - a little Spiderman notebook - which was

right in my budget.

 

I ran into Adele when she was coming out, her arms

filled with groceries. I asked her if I could take her

photo, and she initially said no, and started sharing

much with me. The first topic was Social Security.

She asked me if I knew that if you waited until you

were 70 to retire, you would get $400 per month.

 

I asked if she waited, and she said no, that she

got fired from her job with United Airlines when she

was only 58 for talking about religion on the job. "Then

the woman who fired me," she said, "died. And she

was only in her thirties... Makes you wonder."

 

She told me I had nice teeth, and said that she

got a set of dentures which cost her $2000 - and they

broke, and her dentist refused to fix or replace them,

leaving her toothless.

 

She said she went to England for a while, and

liked it there a lot - said the people are really nice,

that "if you help them, they will help you back."

 

Then suddenly, as if she hadn't seen it before,

she looked at my camera, and asked what I was

doing. I told her of my continuing pursuit of

the angels of the angel city, and said I really

needed to take her photo. She changed her tune

immediately. "Oh, okay," she said, and smiled

at me, and presented me with a series of

expressions, all of which I quickly

captured out in the dark in front of the

big store.

 

As she was leaving, she turned back to

share a joke with me. "Why did the mouse

squeek?" she asked.

"Because it wasn't oiled."

Done