They Can Hear YOU!

08 November 2026

Story #2038

R. Linda:

Let me start right off with the Dragon Lady and the day's headlines. "Truckers Beware Workers For Associated Grocers Northeast Go On Strike."

She read that to me over morning coffee (yes, she's here AGAIN) and asked what I thought the truckers had to beware of; did I think the strikers were going to flatten the truck tyres or set the trucks on fire?

That's when I got up, looked at the headlines she had been misinterpreting, and read the true line out to her. 'Beware' should be 'warehouse.' HOW ON EARTH she saw 'beware' where 'warehouse' was, I have no clue.  She harrumphed and mumbled something unintelligible, and we both went back to our coffees.

About an hour later, she came in and said she couldn't find Tonya. I told her Tonya had taken the youngest kiddo to swim lessons and wouldn't be back until lunchtime. 

"Oh my. I offered to take Tonya's birthday cheque to the bank before lunch, and now it's getting on, and I haven't done that because the VW won't start."

An aside here: I bought Tonya a new Jetta because the VW was having problems. We kept the VW as a spare in case either her car or mine was unavailable. Well, the VW was in good enough shape for short trips, but you couldn't trust it for anything more. 

I sighed. There was nothing else to do but hop in me Saturn and take the Dragon to the bank. 

All the way (a 45-minute drive), she blathered on like a demented squirrel about this, that and the other thing. I grunted responses most of the way because I knew I couldn't get a word in if I tried. Finally, I got to the bank and asked if she was going inside or if she wanted me to go to the auto-teller. No, she said, go to the drive-thru window instead; it would be faster.

So I pull up, and there's this huge van in front of us, and it takes a long time for the transaction to go through. Then the van starts to pull away, but stops. The door opens, and this old, feeble man slides out between the van and the drive-thru window. He's really pressed against both and trying to lean down to pick up whatever he dropped.

This was painful to watch, and it took him a banchee's age to get whatever it was he dropped, straighten up as best he could, slide back into the van's impossibly narrow entry, and then drop it into the window drawer. There we were sitting again, for whatever the holdup on the transaction was.

"Maybe you should go in," I said.

"Oh, no. I am not dressed for the public." 

She was; she just didn't want to. 

Finally, the van pulls away, and we pull up. The teller in the window had her back to us and was talking to someone on the inside. 

"You'd think she had no customers," Dragon says to me in her loud Dragon voice, like someone who can't hear well.

The teller turned around and gave us a cheery "Good morning!" that didn't sound very cheery to me.

I set the money and deposit slip in the tray, and she took it.

In the other lane where the automatic teller was, a vehicle pulled up and started a transaction.

Dragon looks over and says to me, "Well, if they get done before us, I will be getting angry."

The car at the auto-teller finished and pulled off, and another one pulled in.

"Now I wonder why it is taking us so long to put money IN the bank. You would think with the time they are taking with US, we'd be done and gone by now. OH, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT! That car is done and leaving, and WE are still sitting here like we have nothing to do all day!"

After another six or seven minutes, the teller smirks and slides the tray out with the receipt. 

"Have a great day!" She says sarcastically and slides the tray back in, still smirking.

I handed the receipt to Dragon and pulled away.

"You do know she heard everything you said, don't you? The microphone is never off. It isn't like the pharmacy pickup, where they can only hear you when they have the phone to their ears."

Her eyes were nearly popping out of her head. 

"Oh." 

That was it, that was all she said, and she was quiet for the 45-minute drive back home.

Forty-five minutes, mind ye. Not a question, not a complaint, not even a harrumph. I kept glancing over to make sure she was still with me.

And there I was, thinking back to the morning's headline about the truckers having to beware of striking warehouse workers.

Well, I don't know what those truckers had to beware of, but I can tell ye this much: the next time I take the Dragon Lady anywhere, I'm installing a microphone in me Saturn.

I might never have to listen to another word out of her again.

And for the first time in me life, I discovered that forty-five minutes in a car with the Dragon Lady could be an absolute pleasure.

Sheer bliss, I tell ya. Sheer bliss.

Gabe

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