Last week, I was trying to make a quick getaway from my house. My mum was watching the kids while I went to run some errands. Just as I got to my front gate a little old Italian lady popped up, seemingly from nowhere.
"Can I have a plastic bag?" she asked.
I sighed. It meant going back inside the house where I could hear the girls fighting. "Sure," I said.
I dashed back inside, yelling at the kids to stop killing each other, and grabbed a plastic bag.
"Thank you, dear. Now I need to go in your house to get through to the other street. The lane is closed" she told me. (Next to my house is a pathway that goes to the main street, but it's currently closed.)
"Ahhhh, no you'll have to scale three fences if you want to go that way," I told her.
She then started screaming at me that she had to be at the doctor in five minutes and there was no way she was going to make it. Frightened that I was going to have a little old Italian corpse on my doorstep I told her I would drive her there.
Without even a hint of a smile she said: "OK" and turned around and walked off.
"My car is right here," I yelled at her as she hobbled off.
She threw her hand up at me, not even turning around.
I watched her as she grabbed a pile of vines and plant cuttings she'd obviously nicked out of some person's (or people's) garden. "This is why I needed the bag," she called out.
She hobbled back weighed down by half of the inner west's greenery. I opened the door for her and gave my hand to help her in our car, which is a little high up. She shoved the hand away and yelled: "Push!"
I took this as my cue to shove her into the car. One, two, heeeeeeeaaave. Finally seated, pushing shrubs out of my vision and we were off.
"Which doctor are you going to?" I asked.
"The one near the bottle shop," she replied.
"Oh, on the main street?" I said.
"NO! Near the bottle shop," she screeched at me.
"RIGHT THERE!!!"
I pulled up outside a doctor's office a good two blocks from the bottle shop. I jumped out to get her door and help her out. "Don't touch me!"
She jumped out, hobbled off without a word.
A young girl in a car behind me pull around me and abused me for letting the old lady out.
A good deed is supposed to be thanks in itself, I guess. Does that get me some good karma?
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WOW. I have no words. At the very least, know that YOU are a good person.
ReplyDeleteHow delightfully ungrateful!
ReplyDeleteIts people like you who restore my faith in humanity
Its people like her who make me lose it
Yes, yes it does.
ReplyDelete'Cause I say so.
Just spent the morning trying to explain to my three year old why some people do unkind, selfish things. A young moron snatched my purse from my armpit and split right in front of Magoo as we got in our car.
He's still puzzled why 'the boy' would take what wasn't his without asking.
I'd better come up with a good answer before Hubby comes home and has one of his own.
:-) xxx
Even if she was a grouch, you did the right thing. I'm sure, in her own dumb way, she knows this deep down. What was her problem though?!
ReplyDeleteI so believe in Karma, so while good will come to you for your lovely deed (despite her abuse) bad karma will come back to bite her for being such a screechy old lady.
ReplyDeleteGood on you for being so nice though.
OH MY GOODNESS! I was in shock reading this Corinne. You're a bloody angel to put up with that kind of treatment. I mean come on, really, just being old doesn't give you the right to be rude and obnoxious... although I have encountered some bitter old peeps myself.
ReplyDeleteIt is a little freaky and a little funny but I've got the radio on as I write this and it's the Savage Garden song "I believe in karma what you give and what you get returns..." haha, bit bizarre. And please don't judge me for listening to mix 106.5 either, hehe xo
Wow, I can't believe her nerve! You have far more patience than me. It sounds like she might go to my doctor, I'll be on the look out for old Italian ladies bearing twigs. I hope you get some good karma heading your way soon x
ReplyDeleteOld Italian Mama's :)
ReplyDeleteOne of my least favourite patients to nurse. And it's not a racial thing, given that my in laws have italian bloodlines :)
Just ... old Italian Mama's.
That's all I am going to say :)
You're a good soul! x