Open Features: Who Is That Old Lady?
...A very weird thing has happened and I feel compelled to tell you about it. A strange old lady has moved into my house...
Mollie Mercer is puzzled and tormented by the actions of an "intruder''.
A very weird thing has happened and I feel compelled to tell you about it. A strange old lady has moved into my house. I have no idea who she is or how she got invited in. I certainly didn’t invite her and to save me can’t find anyone that did. All I can find out is that one day, she wasn’t there, and the next day she was.
She is a clever old thing I can say for sure. She manages to keep out of sight for the most part, but whenever I pass a mirror I catch a glimpse of her now and then. Like when I look in the mirror to check my appearance there she is hogging the whole thing. She completely obliterates my gorgeous face and body. I feel like telling her this is very rude. I tried screaming at her once and to tell you just how rude she really is, she had the nerve to scream right back at me!
Now I don’t want to jump to conclusions, and I say this confidentially, but I think she is stealing money. I go to the ATM and withdraw a $100 dollars, and just two days later it’s all gone. Now I don’t spend money that fast so I can only conclude the old lady is pilfering from me.
You’d think she would spend some of that money to buy wrinkle cream. Lord knows she really needs it! And money isn’t the only thing I think she is stealing. Food items seem to disappear at an alarming rate. Oh yes indeed, especially the good stuff like ice cream, chocolate cookies and my candy in the candy jar. I can’t seem to keep that stuff in the house anymore. But I’ve got news for her; she’d better watch it, because she will be packing on some extra pounds.
For an old lady, she is quite childish. She likes to play nasty games, such as going into my closets when I’m not home and altering my clothes so they don’t fit me anymore. That isn’t all this sneaky old lady is doing, why she even messes with my files and papers so I can’t find a thing I’m looking for. This is particularly annoying since I am extremely neat and organized. And she fiddles with my VCR so it doesn’t record what I have spent hours correctly programming it.
If that wasn’t enough she has found other imaginative ways to annoy me. She gets into my mail I do declare. She opens my mail, newspapers and magazines and has cleverly figured out how to “blur” the print so I can’t read it. And I believe she must have found a way to mess with the volume control on my radio and TV and yes, even on my telephone too.
I know she must be jumping up and down with glee, because she thinks she has out-smarted me for sure. Why, even in the pantry where I keep my groceries, she has applied some kind of extra strong glue to the lids making it almost impossible for me to open the jars. I get rather down-hearted and intend to ask her if this is anyway to repay my hospitality.
She has taken all the fun out of shopping for clothes. When I try something on she stands right in front of the dressing room mirror and monopolizes it. She looks totally ridiculous in some of those outfits, plus she keeps me from seeing just how great they really look on me.
Just when I thought she couldn’t get any meaner she proved me wrong again. She sneaked in when I went to get my picture taken for my driver’s license and just as the camera shutter clicked she jumped right in front of me. The saddest thing about that is if I should ever get stopped by an officer, I will never be able to convince him that the picture of that old lady is really me!
© Mollie Mercer
