Filial piety

"So, she needs to go out to get her hair cut and she wants to go to the Galeries Lafayette... you'll take her, right?" the hope in my mother's voice is palpable even over the phone.
'
"Yes, yes," I say, full of filial piety and duty-towards-ones-grandparents, etc. (I am in Paris with the grandmother for a few days before returning to Reggio after the summer.) I picture my grandmother and myself strolling through the Galeries Lafayette, chatting amiably, and how good I will feel afterwards, knowing that she has at least been out of the house once this month.

I really should know better by now.

I am hanging out in the living room of my mother's apartment, when I hear my grandmother in the building's courtyard, having finally made it down from her fourth floor apartment (they have apartments in neighboring buildings that share a courtyard).

"Is he in the hospital?" she is inquiring, her voice full of concern. What? I get up to see who she is talking to.

"No, no," a medium-sized boy is saying, having apparently been stopped midway through taking the garbage bins back into the basement. He must be the caretaker's son. "He just has a little cold, really." My grandmother shakes her head mournfully.

"Ah!" she heaves a sigh of great regret/concern/god-knows-what. "Tell him to be careful, though. The number of times someone I know has had 'just a cold' and then, you know... " she lets her voice trail off almost mournfully. The boy looks a bit confused now, and I don't blame him. I stick my head out of the window and call, "I'll be right down." My grandmother is in her element, though, and doesn't even acknowledge me.

"Anyway, you should tell your father..." and she goes off into a list of remedies ranging from the innocuous (lots of sleep) to the minorly bizarre (boiling a mixture of herbs and medicines and breathing it). I have been subject to this last one at various times throughout my childhood, and let me tell you, it is not pleasant. It is like being suffocated by an herb garden that has been liberally doused in cough syrup. The awkward thing is that it does kind of work as a decongestant, so I can't really say anything.

"Right, well, time to go!" I say cheerfully upon reaching her. I wave to the kid and hurry her on my way. For the next twenty minutes, I am treated to a litany of our many family members and acquaintances who have had horrible things happen to them after having made light of a cold. Bronchitis... peumonia... death... lung cancer... colon cancer... (?!) I find this hard to believe, especially that last one, but I concentrate on getting her across the various streets between us and the bus stop, as she is completely not paying attention to traffic. (I think she is under the impression that anyone would stop for a little old lady with a cane. While I hope that this is true, I have my doubts. I don't think she has met very many people in my generation.)

As I grab her arm to keep her from walking into oncoming traffic, she looks up at me.

"But why are you only wearing one shirt?!" she exclaims, horrified. It is seventy degrees out and I am wearing a light sweater, and already starting to bake a little. I know better than to answer her - if I stay quiet, she'll run out of steam faster.

"Look at me: I'm wearing an undershirt and a blouse and a fleece vest, and even I'm chilly. Why aren't you wearing a fleece vest? I have a lovely fleece vest just like this one that I could've given you - it's red with orange flowers embroidered on it!" (I shudder and thank god for my lucky escape.) "Why don't we go back and get it?" (Crap.)

"No, I don't think that's a good idea. Look how close we are to the bus stop!" I try to distract her. No dice.

"Who cares about the bus? How can I ride the bus knowing you are freezing and you will probably catch a cold, just like the poor guardien, and then you will forget to take medicine and you will get a pneumonia and- "

"No, really, I'm fine," I insist. "Come on. Here, I have tickets already."

"I don't want a ticket. I need to go to the post office," with this non sequitar, she veers off in the direction of the post office, dragging me with her.

"Are you sure you don't want to run back to the apartment and get the fleece jacket? Just think how warm your ribs would be! Your ribs are probably freezing and it's terrible to let your ribs catch a chill. Did you know that your lungs are just underneath your ribs, and you've left them with practically no protection at all?"

"My ribs are FINE!" I raise my voice ever so slightly to get the point across. A man walking in front of us turns around and looks at us. Super. My grandmother thinks this is the height of hilarity and giggles to herself.

Good humour and cooperation are momentarily restored as we spend a moment laughing together about the man's likely confusion and his contemplation of the state of my ribs. We enter the post office. I patiently wait in the line so that she can sit down, and when it is her turn, we smoothly switch places. We have done this many times before and we are like a graceful and coordinated team of... I don't know. Something very coordinated.

I sit down and take the opportunity to delete all of the useless publicity-related text messages from her phone (she insists on keeping them 'in case they might be useful'... and probably also because she doesn't know how to delete them). I am about halfway through when the sound of raised voices cuts through my contemplation of a message offering discount trips to Dubai. (Tempting, but I don't think my grandmother would go for it.)

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but we can't withdraw money from your account without a valid form of ID," the teller is patiently informing my grandmother, who is brandishing a passport that is twenty years out of date.

"This is perfectly valid! It even has my photo on it! Just because my hair is a little more gray, nowadays!" Oh dear. The poor teller has no idea what she's gotten herself into. Almost better to just hand over the cash and risk fraud or whatever.

"Right, but-"

"Okay, fine," interrupts my grandmother, clearly having lost patience with the poor young woman. "What if I write myself a check and then cash it?" She is already pulling out her checkbook.

"Well, I'm afraid I'll still need a valid pièce d'identité... a current passport, perhaps?"

"A current passport?! You expect me to carry my current passport around on the streets with me?! In this day and age?! With all of the hooligans about?! That is a ridiculously foolish suggestion, and I do hope that you don't carry your own current passport around for all the world to rob, young woman!" This looks like it could go on for a few more minutes, so I get up and go to her side.

"You know, maybe we should just..." I trail off. I don't really know what we should 'just' do, except maybe leave ASAP, before someone calls the police, or the nearest psychiatric facility.

"Ah, is this your granddaughter?" the teller asks cheerfully, "perhaps she could just run home and get your current passport?"

Wrong answer.

"So that she can get mugged and have my passport stolen from her and god-knows-what-else done to her?! [Insert brief but packed summary of the most recent rapes and kidnappings featured on the news in the last month or so - my grandmother's specialty.] On top of which, it's freezing out there and my granddaughter refuses to wear my extra fleece vest, even though it's orange with red flowers embroidered on it, so even if she didn't get mugged or killed, she'd probably catch a pneumonia. Never mind!"

She wraps up her discourse by zipping her handbag closed with force and begins to make her way out off the premesis. Her exit is somewhat marred by the fact that she can only walk very slowly using both crutches, but she takes the extra time to mumble just-barely-audibly about the lack of cooperation exhibited by the teller and the lack of respect for their elders of young people in general (the teller, by the way, is probably about 40, but whatever... at least she got to be called "young lady" today, right? Silver lining.).

After vetoing three or four fine-looking establishments, we are finally able to choose a cafe in which to sit down and rest and get some food before continuing our arduous journey towards the center of town. She criticizes my choice of salad to anyone who will listen - including the waiter and the woman at the table next to ours, who happens to look over at an inopportune moment - and then regales the poor waiter with the whole of our post office adventure. She finishes by asking him if he usually carries his passport around. I focus carefully on my grilled goat cheese salad, pondering what makes salad dressing in France so delightful (mustard, perhaps?) and try to smile apologetically at the waiter every so often.

Insomma, another run-of-the-mill outing with the grandmère. Sigh.