Pictures...To Go?

When we first came to the American house, we found most of the people to be cordial. One day, we met a new lady in the dining room.  She was going around from table to table talking to people. When she came to our table, she introduced herself and we thought that she seemed like a very kind and generous person.

She told us that she had worked as photographer for much of her life.  The next day she brought some of her pictures to the dining room and took them around to all the tables for everyone to see. The pictures were of flowers, gardens, rock structures and trees. We told her that they were beautiful.

One day she asked my wife and I to come to her apartment to look over her picture albums and pick a few for us to keep.  We didn't necessarily want any of them, but thought it was a kind gesture!

When we went to her apartment, she greeted us and began to engage us in a long conversation.  We were wondering if she was ever going to get to showing us her pictures! After a while, she led us to the room where she stored them. She showed us a few pictures, but continued to talk and talk and talk. At this point, we just wanted to find a couple to take so we could get out of there!

Finally we picked out a few and thought we would be able to go, but then she opened another drawer filled with pictures for us to look at. After another hour of talking and browsing, we had three pictures and it seemed like she was finally ready to let us go.

We started migrating slowly to the exit door to say thank you and goodbye, but as I opened the door, she took the pictures back from my wife!  She said that she needed to check first to see if she had duplicates of them before she could give them to us.  Can you believe it!?!

Weeks went by, but she didn't mention anything about finding the duplicates.  We didn't want to ask her about it, fearing that we would be trapped into another hours-long visit in her apartment.  A few months later, she passed away.  She was a sweet lady who will be greatly missed, but...

...needless to say. we never saw those pictures again!