If Only She Could Hear Herself

(My grandmother and I are the customers in this story. My grandmother is in her mid-eighties and hard of hearing, even though she doesn’t like to admit it and feels embarrassed by needing a hearing aid. Because she doesn’t have a car, I usually pick her up and we do our shopping together. We’re in a clothing store to buy something for my cousin’s new baby. This happens as we’re stepping up to pay.)

Cashier: *on the phone with another customer in the back room, calling out to us* “I’ll be with you in a second.”

Me: “No problem.”

My Grandmother: *loudly and after barely thirty seconds of waiting* “What kind of business is this? Isn’t anyone working in this place? That is completely unacceptable! In my day, this never would have happened. How rude! They’re probably all in the back taking a two-hour break.”

(At this point all the other customers are looking and I hear the cashier finish her call.)

Me: *loudly* “Grandma, you’re the one who’s being rude! You just made a scene, and needlessly insulted the work ethic of the cashier, because you’re too vain to wear the hearing aids you so clearly need. If you didn’t need them like you insist, you would have heard the conversation she and I had when we stepped up to the register, and you would have noticed that she was on the phone with another customer.”

My Grandmother: *gives me a betrayed look, puts down the baby clothes she was going to buy and leaves the store*

(I apologized to the cashier and bought the things my grandmother put down. She still refuses to wear her hearing aids, so when we’re out in public together, I refuse to let her be rude to anyone as a result of her own hearing problems and call her out on it every time – really loudly.)