Gertude went to the bank alone today. As she often does, she starts talking to herself without really being aware of it. She needed to stand in line for a while, shoving her walker and digging into her purse for her wallet. This is in itself a feat, since her purse is filled with several wallets, each for different purposes. One for grocery money, one for paying bills, one for saving for small items such as a new purse or shoes etc. and one for coins. Then she carries just about all her vital documents. Everything from her expired passport to expired driver's licence and some actually valid documents like her health card and so on. Her purse therefore weighs a ton. So as she was digging through her purse, vis a vis filing cabinet, she noticed a young woman in her early twenties also waiting in line wearing high boots with her skirt. Gertud thinking this was outrageous since the weather was beautiful and about twenty-two degrees Celsius started mumbling to herself in German: " I think she might have a screw loose," upon which the girl turned around, looked Gertrude up and down and said: " No, I don't have a screw loose and I can even understand German since my parents are both German." The girl laughed it off, I suppose since Gertrud's dwarf sized old body pushing a walker makes such a fragile impression. Gertrude must have seemed simply comical to her, for which I am grateful, since many a person would have been insulted, and rightfully so I might add.
I explained to Gertrude, that many young women wear boots amost all year round these days as part of fashion and not trying to keep warm. It was simply astonishing to her that this should be the case and she simply frowned about this new practice of wearing boots in warm weather remaining convinced that it was a crazy practice.
I also tried to impress upon her not to be speaking to herself in public like that any more because she could get into lots of trouble should she insult the wrong person. Once again she thought I was simply over sensitive and waved me off.
So much for trying to teach an old dog new tricks.
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