Last week in the grocery store produce department, there was a dad with a passle of pre-teen boys - the dad, of course was shopping - the boys - they were checking out the Roma tomatoes - pick up one, squeeze it a little, pick up another, look seriously at the back of the store, like they wanted to see if they could pitch one back to the seafood department!
And it just popped out of my mouth: "You boys PUT THOSE TOMATOES DOWN! Nobody wants to buy tomatoes after you stand there and squeeze them!"
They looked a little shocked...who was this strange lady admonishing them - then guilty - by this time Dad was headed off to the deli - the offending parties skittered off behind him.
Is it just me? I seem to be less and less willing to stand by in cases of "bad behavior" The weekend before the 4th of July, the new neighbors were having a party. Their college-age son and his friends were lighting off M-80s (illegal fireworks in these parts - bought on our nearby Indian reservation). After our six hour trip home from my brother-in-law's funeral, we were in no mood for the BOOM, BOOOM, BOOM BOOOOM- besides that they were scaring the sheep. But you know what? Come to find out, these guys had been doing this all afternoon - not one neighbor had stepped in to ask them to stop - not the horsey people on the corner - not the llama lady across the street.
Well, we did - we walked over to their house and politely asked them to stop - which they did for a couple of hours, but when they started in again at a quater after ten, I called the sheriff - ordinarily they wouldn't have responded, but when I mentioned the fact that the neighbor had told me that they had bought the fireworks out on the res - that was good enough for the dispatcher and she sent out a deputy. I think they figured out my "no tolerance" policy...
So, where to from here? Is there a chain email that explains "how to be a biddy in ten steps or less" (send this to ten of your friends or biddy-dom will befall you) - Roget's Thesaurus lists the following synonyms for biddy: bag, battle-ax, beldam, crone, fishwife, fury, gorgon, harpy, harridan, Jezebel, Medusa, ogress, shrew, slattern, sorceress, termagant, virago, vixen, witch -those are kind of harsh -
Dictionary.com defines biddy as a fussbudget, esp. a fussy old woman. - not so bad, I think, or as an old friend of mine would say -"I resemble that remark"
"Mom, I don't think you're a fussbudget - in fact that's a funny word isn't it"
Why thank you Neelix - that's very nice of you to come to my defense - you can stop laughing now...
