I am at my daughter's elementary school, walking with my sweet little Alexis and her classmates towards the library. I am not going to stay, but I promise her that I will walk with her and then I have to leave to go run some errands.
We are walking along.
We are chatting.
I am in a good mood and holding my tiny girl's hand.
She is happy I am with her and I am oh so happy to accommodate her wishes.
We are about to enter the library, Alexis smiling a big ol' smile, me smiling right back at her, when ... one of her little friends, from another class, rushes across the hallway and runs up along side of us, looks straight into my sweet little daughter's happy face and says, "Is that your Grandma?"
Alexis says nothing.
I, however, bend over (at my ancient old-lady waist), look the little-six-year-old-monster-child in front of me, right in her face and say, as nicely as my senile mind can muster, "No Sweetie, I am her mother," through a forced smile and clinched jaw -- the jaw that supports my saggy jowls that are connected to my wrinkled face with the bloodshot eyes that are surrounded by deep dark scars where the crows have stomped their nasty little feet and the face with the parched, pale lips that really want to utter something far more sarcastic and way more mean ... but don't, because my sweet little daughter has no idea - THAT I AM CERTAINLY OLD ENOUGH TO BE HER G.R.A.N.D.M.O.T.H.E.R!!!
On the upside ... I hobbled on out of there and managed to make it all the way to my car without any help from anyone, went about the rest of the afternoon successfully completing all of my scheduled errands and made it home just in time to meet my sweet little daughter as she got off her bus ... and ... I never fell once and broke my hip!