Monday, July 2, 2012

Grandkids?

While at the public pool this weekend, the girls and I headed to the picnic tables during the 15 minute ‘adult swim’ time with our bag of snacks. Yes, yes, I’m that mom, the one who brings snacks from home instead of paying a dollar for a candy bar or even a quarter for a popsicle.

We settled ourselves in at a table and they ate cookies and drank water and we waited until it was time to swim again.

A few minutes after we sat down a man and two kids came over and asked to share our table.

I politely allowed their presence at our table. Ha! I honestly can’t imagine telling someone no in an instance like that.

Anyway, the man sat facing away from me and yet attempted to engage me in a conversation. I was busy handing out snacks to the girls and made only the most minimum of effort to reply to his comments and questions.

He said he was there with his two grandkids, who were right there with him. They were visiting from a town several hours’ drive away. They’d passed by the pool, saw the waterslide and his grandson requested they stop.

Anyway, enough backstory, right?

As the whistle sounded, letting us know we could go back into the pool, the man asked me if my girls were my grandchildren.

Huh?

I just smiled and said, “No, they’re my kids.”

Later I asked Tom if I look so old that the girls must be my grandkids. He assured me this is not the case.

I did the math and if I’d had a child at 16 and that child had a child at 16 then Alyssa could be my grandchild.

Honestly, I wasn’t really all that offended. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. This guy didn’t look much older than Tom, who has children who are 28, 25 and 24 (as of today, the younger son, D , 24!)

And those three children have made Tom a grandfather four times (the fifth, D’s son, is due in September.)

So…it’s not really unreasonable that this man thought I’d had children quite young and they, too, had had children very young.

That’s the story I’m choosing to believe. You can’t shake me from it either.

On a side note about the pool: What is up with other people’s children asking for the snacks I bring for my own children? I cannot imagine my kids asking a stranger for a cookie or a cup of Mandarin oranges.

This one kid, not either of the grandchildren mentioned above, sat with us during another break and each thing I offered to the girls, he offered to take himself. I gently told him I didn’t bring enough for every child there, I only brought enough for my children.

He was not to be deterred.

I was relieved when the break was over so I could get away from the little beggar. His mom, by the way, was busy with her infant and this boy’s other two brothers. The child asking for food was probably five, his siblings were all younger.

It was just weird.

1 comment:

Julie said...

Holy cow, I had no idea that D was procreating! Wow!

And no, you don't look old enough to be A's grandma. But in San Diego, Riley was walking around with a young lady who is 19 and someone asked her if she was Riley's mom. She was HORRIFIED. HAHAHA.