Can't Wait to Get to Heaven

Gone Native!

Macky going to church was a surprise, but perhaps the most surprising event took place in May of the following spring.

Verbena picked up the phone and called Ruby.

“You will not believe what has happened to poor Tot.”

“Oh Lord, what now?” said Ruby, sitting down to hear the bad news.

“I just heard from her…hold on to your hat…Tot has gone native!”

“What?”

“Gone completely native overnight! She says she doesn’t know how or what happened to her, but the minute she hit Waikiki and got to her hotel room, she threw off her clothes, underwear and all, put on a muumuu, stuck a flower behind her ear, and says to tell everybody good-bye, that she’s never coming home.”

“What? She’s a white person, she can’t just go native!”

“She said that’s what she always thought, and it came as a total revelation to her. She said she hadn’t even wanted to go to Hawaii, but when she got off the plane, something just took her over! She says she thinks she might have been a Hawaiian princess in another life because she is as happy as a bird and feels right at home.”

“Well, what is she doing?”

“That’s just it, she’s not doing a thing…except floating around on the beach all day taking hula lessons. She sounds awfully happy and cheerful.”

“That’s not like Tot.”

“No, it’s not, and it just makes me wonder if she might not have found herself a boyfriend over there.”

“Did she say so?”

“No, but it stands to reason, don’t you think? And I wonder if he’s not a Hawaiian?”

Ruby sighed. “Oh, I just don’t know anymore, Verbena. The world has gone so crazy, it could be a Hawaiian woman, for all we know.”

“Well, I hope she’s wearing sunscreen, she’s going to ruin her skin running around in that hot sun. She’s liable to get skin cancer.”

“That’s right, when they take off part of her nose, she won’t feel so native, I can tell you that.”

“I don’t think she cares one way or another. She said she’s just glad she made it to social security.”

“Tot is the last person in the world I ever dreamed would go native.”

“Me too. I’m telling you, the longer I live the more surprised I am at people. You just never know from one minute to the next what will happen.”

And so, contrary to the sign she had up in her beauty shop, OLD HAIRDRESSERS NEVER RETIRE, THEY JUST CURL UP AND DYE, Tot did in fact retire. She took the advice Elner had given her and was living every day as if it might be her last. And as Tot sat on her lanai that evening enjoying the warm tropical breeze and sipping her piña colada, she glanced over at her new companion, who sat beside her, and she suddenly remembered the old travelogs they used to show at the movies.

She closed her eyes, and soon the soft strains of Hawaiian music began to play and she could almost hear a familiar man’s singsong voice saying,

“And as the golden sun sets, once again, over beautiful Waikiki Beach, we bid all of you, Aloha and good-bye…. until we meet again.”