They had caught the shuttle over to the public library to research their trip. There were plenty of computer stations there at the retirement center, but they rarely turned down an outing but Sonia had a crush on the 60yo reference librarian who always helped her sort out her fines and overdues. She teased him about being close to retirment age. "Anyday, now, hon, we'll see you over at RetirementCenter______"

Besides, as Lisa said as they sat taking a break from their attempt to hash out a final destination at a table back by the romance fiction, it did them good to see the younger people. "I don't believe it," she said. "You'd think that in 30 years the guys' style of pants would have changed to something that doesn't show butt crack." she nodded toward one tall dark-haired young man holding up his pants with one hand while loping away form a terminal for a break.
"Oh, that's done been out and come back," said Sonia. "What's your problem with it, anyway? He's a sweet thing, don't you think?"
"Keep your voice down, he's coming back," said Denise. They all bent over their travel books and atlases and watched from the wrinkled corners of their eyes as he came back. As he sat down, his shirt hiked up in back and his pants slid down, which he didn't hitch up quite quickly enough.
Sonia and Lisa went into paroxysms of laughter, while Shelley looked sckeptically disturbed about it and tried to shush them. Denise said, "Well, you could have seen the same thing over at the center. You've been pretty scornful of old Willoughby in the cafeteria, you know."
Sonia said, "But not such a nice firm set, you have to admit."
Lisa said, "Well, I've seen everything, I can die now. Getting mooned at the public library. Or maybe that should be the pyubi--"
"Don't say it!" Shelley cut her off, though she was smirking ever so slightly. They often teased her about her rural staidness. She would just look at them placidly and stay right where she was, morally speaking. But she wasn't beyond getting a little snarky herself, though she wouldn't often let anyone call her bitchy but herself.
----

"Shotgun!" Sonia shouted, waving her red hat. Everyboyd else hated that red hat mystique crap and kept hiding it from her. She would just go digging under the bags for it and punch it back out, having long ago lost its Indiana Jones fedora shape. They also pinned strange things to it, like ginkgo leaves and fake sushi and pirate stickers and glow in the dark lizards and in one case a knitted penguin hat stretched over the crown that Sonia borrowed from her granddaughter. She would coo over every new addtion, wear it that way proudly for about three days, then remove them all.

"No f-ing way, lady, you had it last leg." Lisa said, reaching the door first and slipping in, sitting on Sonia’s book bag full of puzzle books for the trip.

"You _are_ on the last leg, woman," Sonia retorted teasingly. It wasn’t a lie. Lisa had had her leg amputated when she was in her 40s, some kind of bone cancer. And actually, they let her have whichever seat she called after every stop, trying to be surreptitious in their solicitous care of their more fragile friend.