Robbing Pennies

            Being the son of a nursing home administrator has certain perks.  Nothing major, but typically my mom can find hours for you to work that she couldn't for other employees, and I can usually avoid many of the less desirable jobs one can imagine need doing in the environment of a long term care facility.  Thus, when she asked me and my brother to pick up a reclining chair from the house one of her residents, Margaret, used to live in, I assumed that she would again protect me from something too awful, and since I was still on the clock, I had no problems with embarking on this easy moving job.  In this particular instance, this nepotism did not come to fruition.

            My brother and I soon loaded up into the facility's huge van, equipped with a fully operational wheel chair lift.  A wheel chair lift that although would make the actual loading of the furniture easier, would not make my actual experience any easier.  Margaret was already sitting in the passenger side and next to her was a CNA that worked for my mom, who would be driving.  We then left, taking the long way to the house, due to the resident's failing memory after at least seventy years of age.  Since we couldn't get a hold of the resident's daughter, we decided to test our luck and just drive over.

            Finally, we pulled down the street of Margaret's former house, and upon doing so, she began to clap very excitedly.

            "They're here. They're here.  That's my car, they're here," Margaret exclaimed.  The four of us pulled up to the house, the CNA's patience failing as fast as Margaret's as she tried to contain Margaret from bursting from the car, before her frail body was ready for it.  Following behind Margaret, at a pace that impressed me considering the delicate frame of the elderly lady, we walked through the enclosed porch of the house and knocked on the door.  The door of the house was a polished, unblemished brown that stood out among the random pieces of broken furniture, 5 gallon paint buckets, broken tools, and Christmas lights, that since it was the beginning of June, I assumed had been left up since last Christmas.  That painted metal door glowed amongst the utter randomness that had accumulated on the porch.  Margaret knocked on the door, and nearly a minute later, her daughter answered, confused upon seeing the four of us standing there.

            "Hold on," she said, shutting the door in Margaret, her mother's face.  Margaret didn't flinch and stood with her nose nearly against the door until her daughter arrived again.

            "We're here to get my reclining chair," Margaret explained to her fat, jet black-haired, and round faced daughter.

            "Get your stuff and get out," was the reply Margaret received.  And so we were let in and guided to the furniture we were sent after.  The house was no better than the porch, and as we stepped onto the fake hardwood floor, we were greeted with all the smells possible from the two Chihuahuas Margaret's daughter owned.  We were then guided to the chair by Margaret's daughter.  Inside was a surprisingly cute little black-haired girl.  Margaret would later tell me she was her ten year old granddaughter, named Lauren.  She looked nearly identical to the girl on the Nickelodeon show iCarly, except that while we were there, we would not hear her say a word to any of us.  We soon got the chair, disgusting and covered in dog poop, hair, and what had to pee from the dogs marking their territory on the legs, and loaded it up into the van. When my brother and I had finished with it we were then sent to carry a dresser out.  My brother and I then loaded it in as well, while Margaret's daughter looked for other items that had once belonged to her mother.  When we arrived back inside, the CNA laughing under her breathe told my brother and I that Margaret's daughter had stepped in dog poop while walking through the house.

            The daughter left Margaret standing in the middle of the living room, while she went back and forth to a bedroom, returning to expel more of Margaret's clothes at my brother and I.  During each of the daughter's passes Margaret would ask a question about the lives of her and her granddaughter, the dogs, and anything else that may strike up conversation.  Margaret was always met with a short answer and a scowl from her daughter.  Still, the ten year old Lauren never said a word, but just watched as her mother treated her grandmother worse than the house and car she undoubtedly had stolen from her when Margaret was sent to live in the nursing home.  We eventually had all the items, items that exceeded the chair we had been sent for, and I heard Margaret ask for a picture album as we began to leave.  By this time, Margaret's initial excitement upon arriving at the house had almost completely deflated, but inside her remained a shred of optimism, reliant on that album.  The daughter was unable to find it before looking and naturally Margaret asked if she would call the home to send us over to pick it up if she stumbled upon it.

            "No, I don't want you over here again.  If I find it I'll drop it off," the round-faced daughter said.  Margaret then replied by asking the daughter if she knew where she lived.

            "Somewhere off Truman road right?" the daughter deflected.  The address and directions were given by the CNA and we turned to leave.  I was the last one out the door, and as I left, I looked at ten year old Lauren, and then into the daughter's scowling, round-face.  I looked her straight in the eye and said "Thank you for your time."  As I continued out the door, I turned back and watched as the daughter, embittered with hate so deep and entwined within her soul, looked at the floor stumbling over the small courtesy I bestowed upon her.  As I looked at her, the scowl that had been glued to that round, chubby face the entirety of our correspondence, was replaced with a flicker of humiliation and shame.  As I closed the door and walked back to the van, I felt no pity for the mistreatment of this child-like elderly woman, whom before today I knew nothing about.  My pity was reserved for Margaret's daughter.  This woman, carrying this grudge and infecting her little girl with it, would receive her druthers.  I knew that innocent ten year old Lauren had been watching the events over the last twenty minutes, and when Margaret's daughter grew old she would understand.  When she would become dependant on her daughter Lauren, she would receive in full, the treatment that she had shown Margaret.  Her ignorance and stupidity did not bring me satisfaction, but left me with only pity.  Pity for this middle-aged, bitter woman at her inability to react to such a small dose of kindness from me. Pity in her encompassing belief that her daughter would not treat her in turn, as she had treated Margaret.  She would be robbed as Margaret had been, left with nothing but failing memories and prying small talk that would come to no avail.