My family and friends always look forward to my Wednesday posts about my weekly grocery shopping trip with my grandmother, so let’s get to it, shall we?
Actually, the trip to Publix went by without much entertaining or interesting happening. On the drive home, I commented, “That was an unusually smooth trip, wasn’t it? Nothing like last week for sure.”
“I wanted to tell you, after our trip last week, I called Publix and spoke with their manager for several minutes about not having any five pounds of flour stocked”, she replied.
“Grandma, please tell me you’re yanking my chain.”
“No, I called and we had a good talk about the flour. He promised me they’d do a better job keeping it stocked. I also told him how the attitude around there was bad last week.”
I took in a deep breath, and exhaled very slowly, weighing my next words carefully in my mind.
“Hey grandma, do you remember when I was younger, what you used to tell me quite a lot? From the time I was around ten until I was well into my teenage years? About getting old?”
“No, what?”
“You used to tell me, very emphatically, that if you ever started acting like a meddling old woman who gets herself out of sorts over stupid things and makes a habit out of complaining about trivial imperfections in service, that you wanted me to tell you without being mean about it. You said you never wanted to be like that.”
But alas, one of the things that happens in old age seems to be that you forget how foolish stereotypical old men and women came across when you weren’t one yourself. All of a sudden, those things that were not worth complaining about, like keeping five pound bags of flour in stock, become worthy of not only in-store tirades, but follow up phone calls to further drive the point home.
“But I have always used five pound bags of flour. I told that there manager if he couldn’t keep ‘em stocked, we’d just shop somewhere else. I told him good.”
Again I took a deep breath, slowly exhaling as I thought my next words over.
“Grandma, you can’t go raising hell every time a store doesn’t have bananas that ripen quickly enough, or the employees don’t tapdance over to you and offer to rake your front yard. It’s just not a good thing to do.”
She had dug in by this point though.
“If we don’t make a stand and get businesses to do right, they’ll keep on giving us a bad deal.”
“Make a stand? You make a stand for human rights, or freedom of religion. You don’t make a stand over bags of flour.”
But it was pointless. Another thing that happens as people grow older is that they pick very odd and minor things to get themselves tied in knots about. Then they find out who to complain to, and they abuse the privilege without mercy, knowing most people won’t just tell an elderly person to bugger off. It’s almost as if they are so miserable with getting old that they have to find some stupid way to vent the misery instead of just admitting they hate feeling old. It’s easier to blame someone or something else.
“They should keep that in stock, it’s important. And it’s important to let businesses know when they let you down.”
I wanted to shoot back that they didn’t let her down, they ran out of an item a lot of people purchase. But I didn’t. My feelings of amusement and silent laughter had turned to sadness for her state of mind. I know how awful it feels to turn into something you always said you hated and didn’t want to be.
My father was an alcoholic, and his drinking made me miserable. I always swore I wouldn’t have a hard time knowing when to say when, but I developed my own drinking problem in my early adulthood years. I remember how hard it was to see my face in the mirror, knowing I was turning into the alcoholic train wreck of a human being my father had been. The thing I least wanted to become, I became.
So for once in my life, I kept my mouth shut when I felt I had a point to make. I decided that deep inside the corners of her heart, she knows what she is becoming, and that knowledge has to be difficult enough of a burden to bear without me piling on.
I know I can be pretty tough on the elderly on my blog, so I wanted to tell this story in order to prove I don’t hate the elderly, just some of their less endearing traits.
One good thing about being an Asperger is that if we think something is the right thing to do, we’ll do it regardless of what the slack-jawed gawkers around us think. A lot of NT’s will only do the right thing if they see another NT do it first.
One night I took my lovely wife to see Celtic Woman perform at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. We arrived a bit early, and found our way to our seats in the balcony. We were pretty high up, and the stairs at the Fox are rather steep. We just sat talking, listening to the orchestra warm up, enjoying a night out.
A woman my mom’s age and what I would assume was her mother came through the passageway to our section and looked fearfully at the upper part of the area. The elderly woman sighed and leaned on her companion and they took a very difficult first wobbly step towards their seats. It was obviously a tremendous effort on the elderly woman’s part, and they still had four or five dozen steps to go.
There were several men in seats around the bottom of the stairs, but they all shifted uncomfortably in their seats and turned their heads in the opposite direction.
“F*** this”, I muttered under my breath, rising from my seat. I walked purposefully down the steps, stood next to the struggling old woman, and smiled, which is not really a natural act for me.
“All right, pretty lady. You put all your weight on me, and we’re gonna get you to your seat.”
She nodded and threw an arm around me. She did what I said, putting every ounce of her weight on me, and the old girl was heavier than she looked. But I got her up those steps and helped her into her seat. She and her daughter both thanked me, and I returned to my wife.
After I sat down, the woman behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said, “That was an incredibly sweet and thoughtful thing you just did.” I felt my cheeks beginning to burn red, and simply said, “It was the right thing to do.”
There was an entire row of nothing but women who had obviously come to the show together sitting a couple of rows behind us. One of them blurted out, very loudly, “We are all so impressed! Chivalry’s not dead! WOOHOO!!”
Then the entire section begin to break into applause. My wife was enjoying it, but she was giving me the quick little pats on my arm she gives me when she knows I am uncomfortable. At this point I was quite embarrassed. I gave a feeble, borderline dismissive wave of acknowledgment, like political dignitaries do.
So anyway, I know I can be tough on the elderly, but I’m not on a crusade against them, I could just very much do without some of the things they tend to do.
All right, dear readers, that’s all for now.
Tags: asperger, elderly, asperger's, Publix, autism, senior citizens, alcoholism, alcoholic, Celtic Woman, atlanta, fox theatre, grocery store, Irish, Ireland, chivalry, Irish-American, manners, etiquette
