We've all known them, or heard about them, or seen them on TV or in the movies, or even had them in our own families. Think of a cross between Granny Clampet, Ma Barker and Grendel's Mom (the monstrous mother of the famous monster in the Old English saga Beowulf.) Today on the bus I met her. The Granny From Hell. I was on the bus, had just taken my seat next to a rather dishevelled, possibly homeless fellow dozing next to me. An elderly lady (I use the term very loosely), very refined and genteel looking, likely on the south side of eighty, hobbled over with a cane. Being both a gentleman and a decent human being (dhb), I sprang up like a jack in the box to offer her my seat. Then she roared like an ogress pouncing for the kill "NO! NO! NO! NO! I don't want your seat!"
I wondered then, as I do now, if she simply did not want to sit next to the allegedly homeless man. I think so, or maybe. But there was also another available seat in front of me and it was still conspicuously empty and she was not moving towards it. I maintained my composure and calmly told her that she was being very rude. She retorted, "Well, you heard me." I replied "And you heard me. That is no way to respond to someone offering you a seat and you should be grateful it was offered to you." She tried to answer back but I told her "This conversation is over. I do not want to talk to you." She tried to persist and I got up and said, "Please don't talk to me." I moved to the empty seat ahead of me and the granny from hell (gfh) remained holding on firmly with both hands, her cane hanging from her arm and remained stubbornly standing.
To the bright looking normal woman (blnw) next to me I said "The Grandma from Hell." Blnw replied benignly and sympathetically, "I think she has a lot of other 'problems' as well." I nodded and said "I know. I work in the field. Unfortunately I was ambushed so I had to do the best I could." She seemed sympathetic and there appeared no need to discuss further Grendel's mom, who was standing right behind me anyway. We got off at the same stop. I gave her plenty of space to leave ahead of me and I hope that is the last we ever see of each other.
This is what I would like to say to her:
"Madame, I am sure that you felt imposed upon when I offered you my seat. We do not know each other, we have never met and likely will never meet again, if we are both lucky. Your reaction, as well as being incredibly rude and inappropriate, was also tragic and sad. A number of people heard your refusal of my seat. What if your reaction is sufficient to discourage them from ever offering their seat on the bus to someone who really needs it? Yes, people like you: elderly, disabled and in some cases just as full of pride and perversity as you are. Perhaps also with dementia or mental illness. You by the way, I highly doubt to be mentally ill. I work in the biz, which doesn't make me an expert and certainly I cannot diagnose a complete stranger much less anyone else since I am not a psychiatrist, but I am giving you here the benefit of the doubt. You are not ill, you are proud, which can take the dimensions of an illness in itself. But I am pretty sure that you are not bat-shit crazy. I am also thinking of the possibility that you did not want to lower your standards and sit next to a poor homeless man and if this is so then it really would say a lot more about you than I would care to know.
"I do not know anything about you, whether you are single, married, widowed, divorced, whether or not you have children, grandchildren or great grand children (poor kids!), or if you are straight, lesbian or asexual, neither your level of education or if you simply hate men or if you simply just hate and actually enjoy or love hating everybody. None of these things matter to me. What does matter is that you are physically frail and I happen to know how suddenly these busses can stop and how easy it would be for you to be sent flying and end up with a broken hip or worse (we all know what ageing does to bones, especially women's bones). And if you must know I spent more than a dozen years looking after elderly people so I know a thing or two about it. And yes, I do care, even about an abusive and ungrateful old bat like you. I do not offer my seat out of duty or obligation and certainly not to feel good or look good to others. I do it because it is the right thing to do. You do not have to accept it, but you are obligated to refuse gracefully, with tact. Unless the woman is right and you are burdened with issues of mental illness and/or dementia and I still find this hard to believe.
"Because it is the right thing to do I will continue to offer my seat to others, even to you, much as I am loath to have to ever deal with you again. Being no longer that young myself, sometimes young people offer me their seat. I am not insulted, but grateful, and I respond to their graciousness with gracious acceptance, as well as the fact that I do like to encourage good behaviour in the young. I really hope that you learn to accept or say no gracefully."
She was by the way wearing sunglasses, so I couldn't see her eyes. And she spoke with a British accent.
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