Vignettes #13

A few years after my American grandmother's death my grandpa made friends with an elderly lady. This woman was probably the greatest miser I have ever met.

My sister Andrea and I were the first of our family to get to know her. In 1977 we visited our Grandpa without our parents, Andrea was 12 and I was 15. We took the train to Frankfurt, caught a plane to Chicago, and from there we switched planes to St. Louis all by ourselves, and I was responsible for my little sister.

Our Grandpa was a jolly good man, to us kids something like Santa Claus in person, generous and gregarious, and he loved us very much, so we were looking forward to meeting him. Unfortunately, he had this new female friend, so we were confronted with her all 3 weeks of our stay including a week in Florida. Grandpa paid for everything including her costs.

My first enconter with this lady was that she had bought me books, because she had heard that I like to read. They were about a dozen massmarket paperbacks with the covers torn off, so they had cost her 5 cents a piece. Besides that they were damaged none of them had any appeal to me, just average pulp, but to be nice I accepted them.

All through our stay she domineered every step we made, in St. Louis and in Florida. As soon as she noticed that the 3 of us were having fun she commanded that it was enough, and we were ordered to do something else. Needless to say that my Grandpa always obliged obediently.

Since I didn't want to hurt Grandpa's feelings and not to be a bad example for my sister I remained polite and well-mannered all the time, although it was very difficult. Likewise Andrea stayed well-behaved as well. Still and all we enjoyed our time with Grandpa as short as it was.

On the day of our departure they both drove us to the airport and said their farewells before we left for the gate to our plane. As soon as were finally alone and had made the next turn to be out of sight for Grandpa and that woman Andrea dropped her suitcase, stomped with her feet and cried out "I HATE HER!!!"