So, I am running a Christmas errand for my mother. She shopped herself( which means I drive, I carry the purses, I push the wheel chair, I carry the bags to the car and I buy lunch). She loves to be able to make those decisions and I want to give that to her even though I feel like a pack mule half the time. She needed to mail packages because my brothers all lived out of state. (Mailing her packages means I find or buy boxes, I stuff them, tape them and take them to the postal store and skip lunch that day – which I did.) Thankfully she has given me a credit card on her account so I can run errands for her without her having to be with me. I used her card. It was denied. “Odd.” I thought. So I used mine. $38.00 to mail a box with $35.00 of stuff.
I had suggested she buy lightweight things. “They don’t want “light weight things”, she said to me mockingly,tilting her head back and forth as she said it - with frustration in her voice. She had an agenda at the store and gifts in mind. I must admit she generally is a good shopper…but why send a hammer and a 2 pound box of candy when you could send the money and the cost of shipping? But anyway –back to the story - the credit card was denied.
I called her to find out if there was a problem and her first comment was, “Don’t worry dear. Just stay at work.”
“Stay at work? What do you mean? Why are you saying that?”
“The police have already talked to me and I am home now.”
“WHAT!!?!?!? What did the police talk to you about? Where were you that they talked to you?”
“Grocery Store.”
“Grocery Store? And…what else, what else?” I was getting frustrated because I had skipped lunch and mailed her packages using my lunch money and was running late to get back to work for a meeting with nothing for lunch but two pieces of gum and my mother was having an emergency while I wasn't there.
“I was robbed.”
“Robbed! Are you okay? Did they hurt you? Were you in the grocery store? The parking lot? Where were…
“Now there you go getting all upset. I have to finish cancelling all my credit cards. I cannot talk now.”
“Good Grief.” I thought. Two weeks before Christmas and some slick mugger robbed my poor little 85-year old mother and she is too busy to tell me about it. “I am coming home. “ I will be there in 45 minutes.”
Then she started – that staccato voice thing where every word is accented like the sharp ping of a high C. “I sa-a-ai-i-i-d-d – You – don’t-have-to-worry. I-have-everything-under-control. Stay-at-work-and-behave.” Was she mad at me? I began to realize that she wasn’t okay – her blood pressure was probably through the roof. I had to start being the mother in this conversation. Take a deep breath! I knew I was not going to get all the answers now.
“Mom, have you contacted all of your banks and card companies? Make a list and mark them off one by one. I will see you in a little bit.” I called my son who was much closer and he ran over to the house to be with her. I got home a half hour later. My son helped her work through everything and she was very relieved to see her daughter come home. Her twitchy eye and tear-filled gaze told me it had been more difficult than her words portrayed.
She had befriended two girls looking at cards. While one distracted her the other took her wallet and replaced it with a similar one – so the grocer’s security tape showed. They were professionals. Though we know what they look like we don’t know who they are. I would like to slap them around I want to steal their wigs and their makeup and their clothes and their…. I guess I have to leave their punishment in the hands of the Lord. He is better at revenge than I am.
I must resist the urge to take revenge myself. I made us both hot chocolate and she told me everything.
Patiently resisting………...the urge for revenge~
