First, you wonder who Martha is. My guess is that she really isn’t Martha. That Martha is a professional name. Martha is an Hispanic woman, who is a barber at the Bradley Barber Shop in Bethesda.

Why is she poor? Well, I don’t really know that she is poor (in the financial sense). I have no idea of her finances.

But she is poor in the sense that she had to listen to one of her customers this afternoon, who just didn’t stop talking.

Poor Arthur…….

Arthur is poor because he was getting his hair cut in the chair next to Poor Martha and heard the entire monologue.

A young looking man sits down in the chair. After asking Martha how she is, and telling her that he is great, he tells her that he wants his hair clipped very closely on the sides – “give me a 1, an 0, no a 1”, and to leave it as-is on the stop.

Then he tells her that he has been very busy, that business is good, that he just brought on a new person and already has 15 or 20 appointments of new people for him to see. His business, he said, is financial advice, teaching young people how to save and how to invest their money (“it’s hard to do these days”), so they will have savings when they are older. If she has any financial questions, she should give him a call; he’d be happy to talk to her.

Then he switched to Valentine’s Day. “Do you know my wife asked me why I didn’t get her roses on Valentine’s Day? I told her that roses on Valentine’s Day were $45 a dozen (no baby breath, no anything, just the roses. At Safeway, no less), but today you can get a dozen roses for $11. So I got her roses ten days before Valentine’s Day – that’s the smart thing to do. There is not reason to waste money. I got her chocolate back then too, and gave her a little each day. I gave her the last part on Valentine’s Day. So I did my part.”

Then he told her he just had his 41st birthday. “You think I don’t look 41, don’t you? That’s what everyone thinks. 41. Well, I really hide it well, I guess. But I am 41. 41.” His own son is 13. Maybe he should come to the Bradley Barber Shop, too. “I think I may bring him next time”.

During all of this, and more, Martha said nothing.