Saturday, August 22, 2009

What's an old hag, mommy?


That's the latest in a long line of questions my son needs to have answered no less than 32 times a day. He has fun asking the same question over and over until I figure out his little game. I'm not sure where he heard the term "old hag" - probably in a fairy tell grandpa read to him. It's not an easy term to define, but I did my best to ensure he never referred to either grandma as an old hag. Unfortunately, my husband has managed to attract numerous old hags, or more accurately bitter old women. I think he doesn't put enough good karma out into the atmosphere, spending his time coaching young boys rather than helping old women across the road.


The first was a lady in our neighborhood, one of three who seem to spend most of their days looking out for wrongdoings so they can call the police. They've done it three times to the man across the street (who spends his free time delivering food to the homeless) when his 16lb 16 year old dog stepped on her lawn. She's also yelled at me when mine stepped on her lawn, and once when he lifted his leg on her pot (I don't go near there anymore on my dog walks). Now, I do not make it a habit of wandering up people's driveways so my pups can pee on their flower pots. But she keeps hers at the end of her driveway, actually she keeps 5 scattered strategically around her driveway, so she has to move them each time she needs to move her car. Why, you might wonder? Six years ago another neighbor used her driveway to turn around, left a small black tire mark, and she never, ever wants that evilness to occur on her precious driveway again.


Mean old lady number two was found wandering around a park. Brian was running a soccer camp and he did allow the kids to occasionally pee by a tree. It's debatable whether this is appropriate behaviour, but I'm sure anyone with little boys knows it happens. So there my little 6YO was peeing away when a woman walks by with her dog and screams at him, "you can't pee there, go to the bathrooms," making him cry. My husband lost his cool a bit and yelled back at her, at which point she called the cops. The cop explained that indeed we should be using the bathroom, but he was fortunately very nice and understanding. She stood up on her high horse and said she'd been a teacher for 22 years in this community. I feel sorry for her students.


The third story is truly awesome. This morning my husband was at a soccer tournament and called me with "the funniest story ever." He was coaching the game on a field which had very little room around it. So little that when he tried to warm his team up some volunteer decided his kids were too close to the field and actually pushed one of them away. She was lucky it was his soccer player and not his actual progeny as he merely gave her a verbal warning not to touch his players. When the actual game started, in order to leave enough room for the sideline refs, he had his players put their bags a few feet away, encroaching on a 12 foot wide path surrounding the field. There was now a mere 11 feet should someone want to take a stroll along the path. Of course the nemesis arrives in the form of an 80 year old woman, who yells at my husband that he can't put his team's bags on the path. He tells her there's plenty of room and goes back to coaching. His team was down 4-0 so it was not exactly a good day so far. Alas that is not good enough, so she barks "this is my field" and proceeds to walk across the field, with the game in progress. When the referee tells her she has to get off the field she sits down, staging a spontaneous protest of one old woman. I so wish I'd have been there. The other coach threw out a veiled threat about her coming down to San Jose, the ref called the game, and Brian called me to make sure I blogged about this.

2 comments:

  1. Why am I scared that I'll be one of those women in 40 years? Great stories.

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  2. Problem is -- I've seen some "young" hags act the same way or worse -- just take a ride on any public transit system. And what does one call these?
    Stop the sterotyping, please. I'm "old" and would never do anything like what was mentioned.

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