Mar 132009
I rode down the elevator this morning with an elderly woman who was chatting amiably with my nurse about how she tutors grade-school kids in basic arithmetic. “It’s so important to know your numbers,” she said. As I’m backing out of the elevator, she looked at me, smiled, and said, “Do you know your numbers?”
Le sigh. Put me in an elevator with some random old lady and there’s a better-than-even chance I’ll emerge a couple minutes later with blog material. Kind of like how the odds for rain improve after you wash your car. I think I replied with something along the lines of “I sure hope so.” I’m not terribly clever early in the morning. I should have said, “Lady, I went to law school so I wouldn’t have to know my numbers.”
Painful, yet somehow interesting. This anecdote reveals so much: about the situation you are in, about prejudices… and about elderly women.
It was kind of you NOT to reply you are an intelligent lawyer , considered by some as one of the best bloggers living today.
You could have asked this elderly lady: do you know what bloggers are?
It strikes me now that prejudices also exist about elderly ladies: as if they’re all stupid , pitiful , pathetic, unattractive.
Oops! I missed a letter in my email address.
Mark,
It appears you approved the message I messed up–the one with a missing letter in the address–but not the original. (Or, perhaps you didn’t receive it due to the incorrect email address.) So… I’ll try again.
I am a first grade teacher (and an old lady). I spend the majority of my day talking to six-year-olds. Occasionally my family feels the need to remind me that THEY are not six and that I should not speak to them as though they were.
Perhaps they have a point.
Barb
PS Despite the fact that you are a successful lawyer, I still think you should “know your numbers.”