Granparent Visitation

Oma and Opa are visiting at the moment. Today, they have gone to see the spot where James Dean died, which is a non-descript junction, on a non-descript road, near a non-descript town. And it's not the place where he died any more, because they've moved the road.

Oh, and it's 190 miles away.

Anyway, I know you're all seeking an example of how exasperating it is to have them here, so here we go. Susanne sent them to pick up the boys from school. It's really (really) easy to get to the school from where we live. You walk out of the gate, and there's a school in front of you. But there's a fence, so you turn right, and walk until you reach the gap in the fence - i.e. the gate, and you wait for the boys to appear.

So, this is what they did. But also waiting at the gate was someone else - I think they worked there, but they might have been a mother. And they were African American. The fact that they weren't white is enough to worry the grandparents, but it's hardly surprising, given that 39% of the kids at the school are black (I don't know that off the top of my head, I just looked it up on greatschools.net, if you're interested 29% are white, 26% Hispanic, 9% Asian [which means East Asian, not South Asian, as it does in the UK) and 1% something else. )

In addition, one of the security guards in our complex is black, and female. (I make it sound like there are teams of security guards, there aren't, theirs one at a time). Therefore a black person waiting outside the school was probably some sort of security guard. This person said something to them. We don't know what, probably because they didn't understand, but Opa won't confess to not understanding anything in English - we have argued about both the meaning, and the pronunciation of English words. Whenever Opa finds a word he doesn't know, he displays shock and astonishment - and this happens pretty regularly; in a restaurant yesterday he displayed shock and astonishment that Susanne used the obscure word 'check' when she wanted to pay, rather than saying "Please I want to pay". Whatever it was that the non-white non-security guard said to them, frightened them and made them go away, so that when Susanne came to pick them up with the boys, she found the boys, but no grandparents.

After circling the block a couple of times, she found them by a different school gate.

But it's not all bad. Opa has finally acquired a credit card, and he is very proud of his move into late 20th century banking practice.