Episode #1 of many

Today we went to a flea market in Mansfield that some of her fellow old-people neighbors recommended. I was surprised she wanted to go. It didn't seem like her thing. She's never really been a shopper. A buyer...yes, just not much of a shopper. Anyway it was something inexpensive to do, because her high dollar days are over, so off we went. Today's embarrassments consisted of the following:

We were standing in line at Wal-Mart, because it wouldn't be a visit to Gannyland without going to Wally, and when she suspected that the person in front of us was Muslim she proceeded to tell me that you see "them" everywhere you go now. She even had one tell her the other day how proud she was that she managed to get her husband to convert to Islam so they could get married. "America's just going to pot" she said. I still don't know if the man in front of us heard her, but fortunately for me, he gave no indication that he did.

Later at the flea market, just when I thought it was safe, she just randomly stopped a large black man entering the store as we were leaving and asked him how tall he is. He is 6'4. She asked him if he played basketball. My survival instinct suggested I get a head start running for the car. When he said no she acted shocked and then put a gentle coating of senility on the implied racism by talking about her glory days in varsity basketball back in '49.