World's Greatest Grandma

I know that I seem to have slowed down on the "inspirado" for this blog lately (mostly due to coming up with a plan for a book/ magazine freelance idea that will monopolize most of my free time). While I am quite sure that this hasn't affected anyone's quality of life too much, as a cheap substitute for a well thought-out essay, please enjoy the following excerpt from my daily life:


I was walking to the ATM to make a withdrawal and saw an old homeless woman sitting by the door. This made me think three things;

1. This was a clever, if incredibly annoying, place for her to sit.
2. It is really tough to guess most homeless persons' ages, those faces go through hell, she could have been 25 or 624 for all I knew.
3. I love numbered lists, but that has nothing to do with this story.

I had nothing in my pocket that resembled legal tender, or maybe I would have given her something. In Boston most bartenders know several bums by name and I had seen this one here before. Once she was wearing a "World's Greatest Grandma" T-shirt that almost sent me into a seizure of hilarity. I walked by and she made eye contact, the homeless tractor beam, and I told her I had no money.

"That's OK hun, have a nice night." she said. Dammit! Why couldn't she have cussed me out, or yelled incoherently about Jesus or Jebus or something? I was in the bank lobby for a while, doing a couple of transactions at the ATM, and a young woman came in and used the next machine over. "World's Greatest Grandma" came in, supposedly to get warm (yeah right) and stood in the corner as 120 bucks came out of my machine, fwwpt,fwwpt,fwwpt,fwwpt,fwwpt,fwwpt right in front of her. Now the woman walked by "WGG" and gave her a buck. Dammit.  I walked towards the door, and she was right there.

"Look, I can't give you a twenty, that's just not happening." I said.
"I think I have change!" she responded with no sense of irony, and fished her rheumatic hands into the pockets of her parka. She pulled out a bag of coins, and dug deeper. Her fingernails were an inch long on some fingers and short on others as she placed a two dollar bill on a ledge. "Look, a two dollar bill!" Then came the singles, one at a time, unbelievably wrinkled and soiled. "Three, four.." she went, unbearably slowly, one at a time, until "thirteen!" At this point I realized two things;

1. "World's Greatest Grandma" might make more than I do.
2.  I was getting change from a homeless woman!

"Look, I am running late for work, I don't have time for this. If I see you later I will give you a buck" I said, keeping my twenty of course.
"Wait! I have more bills!" she exclaimed as I hustled out the door and down the street.

I am sure that there is a moral to this story, but I am not sure what it is. I am pretty sure however that this woman was not the "World's Greatest Grandma", or else her parka would have been full of Werther's Original and her dollar bills would have been crisp and new and stuffed into generic birthday cards.