Lunch in a minefield

Ohhhh...I could just club myself.  I am just not catching on to this older people stuff.  More specifically when to help and when not to.  And it changes with the day, the time, the person, the situation--you name it.  Yesterday's transgression, while minor, still made me feel awful.

At lunch with mom and my brother, we sat at a table with a lady I had never met.  All of the waitstaff know everyone and all their specific issues, and I was told before we were seated that the lady doesn't talk much, if at all.  I'm thinking "OK.....we'll still try to engage her and include her in our conversation", and we did.  And then her entree came.  And she just sat there.  And sat there.  And sat there.  Admittedly, I  finally went into nurse/mother hen mode, and asked her if she'd like me to cut up her chicken, thinking maybe she needed help.  She looked me dead in the eye and said "I'm not that old" and I just cringed.  And she wasn't smiling either.  Well, swell...I'd managed to insult her in under ten minutes.  A new record.  Dang.

Another lady a few weeks back needed the help, so whadaya do....?  I wish there was some kind of handbook for situations like this--especially with people who fade in and out right before your eyes.  As it turns out, this lady talked with us, if asked specific questions about herself and her family.  Was any of it accurate?  Who knows...but it sounded like it might be.   And she was as independent as a hog on ice, let me just tell you.  Help with her walker?  Nope.  Move that chair for you?  Nope.  Sort of explains the chicken, now.

When I got to my car, I called my sister to give her an update on mom and to tell her what happened.  She laughed so hard she started coughing....and then she made me laugh, too.  We've both decided that this is like going to lunch in a mine field, and you just have to "feel" your way along, lest you step on a trip wire, and your fellow luncher detonates.  Looking at it that way just makes it a game for me and sort of fun and funny......no one dies, and we all get dessert.