Universal Truth: Little Old Ladies

Eric got off the elevator laughing on Tuesday night. We had decided to indulge in a little American-ness and ordered pizza from Dominos. They have a 2 for 1 special on Tuesdays, so we opted for a large pepperoni pizza and a large ham pizza. Granted, we didn't necessarily need that much pizza, but I'm a big fan of leftover pizza so it pretty much prevents me from having to fix myself lunch for the rest of the week.



Anyway, we were once again reminded on Tuesday night that there are some things that just don't change - no matter where you are in the world. Our latest example: little old ladies. They feel quite free to speak their mind and leave no doubts about what they're thinking.

The doorman called us to let us know we had a delivery and Eric went downstairs to get it. There was an older lady from our building down there talking to our doorman. After paying for the pizza, Eric turned to head towards the elevator. He was about to greet the lady and thank the doorman, but before he had the chance the little old lady nodded towards the pizza boxes with a confused look on her face and dramatically shouted out, "Que isso?!?" (What's that?)

Eric told her it was pizza and she asked where he got it from. Indicating towards the name on the box, Eric told her it came from Dominos. She gave him a rather untrusting look, as if he was trying to pull one over on her, and Eric promptly opened up one of the boxes to show her the contents. While peering down at the pizza and scrunching up her face as if totally disgusted, she asked Eric if he actually liked that. He shrugged and told her it was quite good, while she just gave him a disbelieving look. Eric smiled, told her good night, and turned to head towards the elevator. Just before he was out of ear-shot, she muttered something about it being enough food to feed the entire building.

As Eric told me about his encounter with our neighbor, I just giggled. At what point do I get to stop worrying about being polite and just say whatever pops into my mind? Because I make it a real point not to let my disgust show when I see people eating a kabob full of roasted chicken hearts. And despite nearly having a heart attack when a chicken foot (with toenails and everything!) pops up out of the stew as I go to serve myself some frango com quiabo (chicken with okra), I hide my shock for the sake of minding my manners. But at some magic age in the future, I think I'm allowed to just say anything - it's like some sort of reward to little old ladies for being so prim and proper during the earlier years of their life. It really seems like a good reason not to moan about the increasing number of little wrinkles around my eyes . . . I just need to think of it as being one step closer to the benefits of little-old-lady-hood.

And who knew pepperoni pizza could be so repulsive, anyway?