Miss-Taken Identity

Who wouldn't want to be HER grandma?!

I was waiting in the doctor’s office for an appointment.

I had four children.

And with cuts, bumps and ‘whatever was going around at the moment’ tended to spend a lot of time there.

My youngest wasn’t feeling well.

We had assumed our usual location in the large room.

My daughter was happily seated in her stroller, watching the other people in the room.

I was engrossed in a four-years-old copy of Time magazine.

Funny how the headlines and concerns of that day looked almost comical four years hence.

But I digress . . .

A woman entered the room and took a seat nearby.

A well-dressed, exquisitely-groomed, obviously prosperous woman in her mid-forties.

My daughter looked at her. “Grandma!” she crowed happily.
She loved her grandma.

I smiled. The woman did have the same hair-colour.

To us it was a title of honour.

Obviously, our opinion wasn’t shared by the whole audience . . .

The woman glanced over at us.

Then, realizing that the little girl was actually speaking to her, her expression of well-bred hauteur changed.

To one of absolute horror.

She got huffily to her feet and glared at me. “I AM NOT A GRANDMA!” she announced.

Loudly.

I stared back. What do you say to that?

“Umm . . . she has a really young Grandma,” I stuttered lamely.

It was all I could think of.

“Humph!” the woman said and, turning, stomped to a different part of the room and out of our sight.

But my daughter wasn’t done. “Where Grandma go?” she asked plaintively. “Grandma!”

Yikes.

I’ve waited for doctor’s appointments.

Sometimes for as long as a couple of hours.

None were as long as this one.