A leprechaun in the grocery store

I saw a leprechaun in the Amish grocery store today. I walked up and there he stood, hiding in plain sight. He wasn't dressed up in leprechaun finery; he wore a grey stocking cap and a plain blue suit, but a real leprechaun he was, a little old one.

He looked back at me square in the eye, and his blue eyes twinkled. It seems even leprechauns have to shop for groceries.

He didn't buy much, but he did pause and look, lingering near the breads and cakes. There I was in my green polo shirt, fingerless knitted gloves, crocheted hat, and green shamrock pin, buying a load of groceries. I had planned to buy green sugar cookies, but decided instead to spoil my family and make homemade red velvet cake. I thought the contrast would be so beautiful and fitting with all the Irish green everywhere one looked.

I couldn't catch my leprechaun in the store. I wanted to fall in behind him in the check-out lane, even if just to spy on him more, but he slipped around me past the frozen foods and disappeared. I headed my cart to the check-out station, pulled out my reusable bags and stacked my items on the conveyor belt.

Grapes, bananas, yogurt, eighty dollars worth of stuff. At this point I'm in front of the cart. When I was almost done, the leprechaun popped up behind me, bent down to the lower cart rack I couldn't reach and placed my last item, a bottle of laundry detergent, on the belt for me.

I would have reached out and caught him then, but the grocery cart came between the two of us. He looked at me without fear - he knew I couldn't catch him. I also think he liked red velvet cake, and somehow magically knew I was going to make it. He didn't seem to care I knew he was a leprechaun.

The room faded away when I looked at him. His beard was grey, not red, and he seemed a little too old to spin about. He could tell I was the only human in the room who knew who and what he was. I tried to concentrate. The sounds of children playing outside brought me back to reality as their voices and cries faded in and out. Cheerfully, the old leprechaun used his power over me and my awe of him to make me hold my tongue. Then he whisked his way around me out to the parking lot, through the cars and around the horses, and simply disappeared.