When Silence Would Have Been Golden
by Karen Williams | January 18, 2007 - Seminole Chronicle
Small children and older people often share a common trait - painful bluntness in their conversation.
My first-grade granddaughter, Akiko, visited recently, and we went to the neighborhood park, where we played a vigorous game of hide-and-seek. I hid behind trees and under the slide.
"I bet Akiko thinks I'm even younger than her parents," I thought proudly.
Back home, we played a rousing game of Frisbee.
"You're really good at this!" I complimented her.
"And you're really old," she replied.
I couldn't believe my ears. Maybe she meant to say that I'm really bold, for I am indeed a bold Frisbee player. My Frisbees often land on the roof or bonk the shins of passers-by.
I shook it off, reminding myself of other times a kid said the darnedest things.
Years ago, after we moved to Oregon, a kind woman in our church took my sons and me to a park. She bought us ice cream and invited Joel, 5, to sit by her on a bench.
Joel stared up at the woman. "Why do you have all those wrinkles on your face?" he asked, as I stood to the side, making frantic gestures for him to zip his lip.
"Oh, because I'm a grandma," the woman replied.
"My grandma doesn't have those," he said between slurps of ice cream.
Laughing nervously, I drug him to the merry-go-round and put him on the high-spin cycle.
Another time, I took Joel along to a parent meeting in the classroom of one of his older stepbrothers. The teacher gave a talk to the packed room and then asked for questions. Joel immediately raised his hand. "How much money do you make?" he demanded.
"Not enough," she replied indignantly.
"Next time, let the parents ask the questions," I whispered between clenched teeth as he lunged toward the refreshment table for a handful of cookies.
But when it came to frank talk, no one could top my mother, who lived with me in her later years. TV or real life, everyone was fair game.
"I can't stand that Kelly Ripa," she would say while watching Live with Regis and Kelly. "She thinks she's so cute!"
"Some of those TV evangelists are lousier preachers than this dog laying here," she would often announce, pointing at our chubby Lhasa apso snoring at Mom's feet.
When a neighbor dropped by, Mom would allocate the person two minutes and then send her packing. "Unlike you, we're too busy to talk now," she would say.
Then there was the hapless water filtration salesman.
I was contacted by several companies about having our drinking water tested. One fellow came at 3 p.m. for his sales pitch and was still trying to convince me at 5:30.
After various angry gestures at me from her bedroom doorway, my mom stomped forth in her walker, telling the fellow to go home.
"And as for you," she accused me, "I know that you're just keeping him here because you want to find a boyfriend!"
"No!" I protested, mortified, as the man hurriedly packed up his brochures.
"Well, you can't make me believe that!" she countered, and I knew it was futile to try.
He drove off before I could ask for my free gift.
"Gosh, Mom," I protested. "You seem to be mad at the whole wide world!"
"No, just at the people in it," she snapped.
I sighed a perennial sigh. At least she wasn't prejudiced - she disliked everybody equally.
Copyright 2007 - Karen Williams
