OLD LADY LEVEL 5: UNLOCKED!

In which a beetroot is shamed on a bus

I went to bed very early last night, since I’d been up since 6am, driven 250km to deepest, hottest Portugal and back, and so woke up stupidly early for a Saturday.

Yesterday, in the car, I told Luís that I’m going to walk for at least an hour every day for the rest of my life because I sit working for far too many hours in the day and I am incredibly unfit and blobby, and if I don’t do that he must push me out of the door and tell me not to come home for at least an hour.

Since I couldn’t wait for him to wake up to push me out of the door, I did it myself, and walked a brisk 30 minutes to the nearest Continente to buy some vegetables for lunch (not doughnuts), intending to walk back again, just as briskly.

It’s a warm and muggy morning here on the south bank of the Tejo so by the time I got to the supermarket I looked like a sweaty beetroot. Once the sweaty beetroot look has kicked in, it takes a good while for me to return to not-sweaty swede. As is my usual MO, I didn’t just buy a couple of vegetables for lunch, but a whole load of other stuff, which meant I had too much for my back and rotator cuffs to bear, so I went to get a bus.

I had left my travel pass at home, and had no cash on me, but it’s 2026 and you can pay with your phone. “Can I pay with my phone?” I asked the driver. He cranked his neck round to look at the thingy that beeps. “It’s not accepting phones today” he said.

“Damn, ok, never mind, I’ll go get some cash, get the next bus” said I, but he said “no worries, just get on.”

Almada bus and metro drivers can be incredibly nice. “Are you sure?” I asked, but he just waved me through. I thanked him effusively, and went to find a seat.

Still beetrooty, with my two large, heavy bags of shopping at my feet, listening to a podcast which was starting to annoy me and thinking about what I wanted to write in my newsletter today, I was suddenly aware of someone standing in front of me, speaking. I tapped my earpod to stop the stupid conversation in my ear, and looked up to see a very pretty, mid-20s young woman.

“Do you need money?” she asked, with a head tilt reserved for the purpose of talking to old and/or stupid people.

“oh, gosh, that’s kind of you” I replied, “but I just forgot my passe at home.”

“No, really, please let me give you some money to pay for the bus” and she held out one of those little net gift bags, tied at the top with a ribbon, containing some coins. This confused me for a second, which maybe she took as indecision about taking it.

“No, but thank you anyway. I really just left my passe at home. The driver let me on. He’s fine with it… thank you, though.”

The little gift bag was still being waved at me.

“I really, really mean it, it’s fine, please take it.” she said. The whole bus was now invested. She wouldn’t drop it. I am almost pleading with her to stop. “Really, I don’t need it, thank you.”

A million things were going round my head. What do I look like to her? Yes, I sometimes dress a bit bag ladyish which, in Portugal, is still very much not the done thing, but today I am wearing an astonishingly (for me) pristine white t-shirt, no coffee or tomato or toothpaste stains, black jeans and normal looking trainers. I have my greying hair tied back in a pony tail and I had even brushed it before tying it up (rare). One of my shopping bags is large and luxuriously hand painted and made by me. Is it the beetroot look I’m rocking? Does she think I’m about to expire?

My inner idiot wanted to stand up and say, “do you want to see my bank balance, it’s here on my iPhone?” or “I’m not weird, I’m just English” or “I’m not at death’s door, I just walked briskly 30 minutes in this horrible muggy weather, and I’m quite unfit, because I am a workaholic and that means a LOT of sitting down, that’s why I look like this, slumped over my shopping, and this fucking podcast being played into my head via very expensive earpods, isn’t helping my mood!” or “Please, love, drop this virtue signalling, the whole bus is watching and *I’m* the one coming out of this looking like the crazy one, so please fuck off.”

My outer idiot, however, just smiled, and shook my head violently, and said, repeatedly, “no, thank you, really, thank you, I don’t need it, but thank you for the offer.”

The bus stopped at her stop, and as she was about to leave she said “Now, are you sure? I’m not going to run after you to give it to you!”

“No problem!” I grimaced at her.

So, there I was, left on the bus, all eyes on me, the sweaty beetroot bag lady too proud to accept a little baggy of coins.

One minute later, we arrived at my stop, me thankful that this was over, and I could walk up my street where people are used to me. Someone else got off behind me, and as she overtook me, I saw that it was a girl I am on nodding terms with from Pilates. She didn’t acknowledge me.

The young woman on the bus was trying to be kind, yes, but that pre-prepared baggy of money was a bit of a tell that she’s out looking to be kind. Not a bad thing, I guess, but did she have to make such a scene? When someone says “no thank you”, just accept it and move on, for the love of god.

I was embarrassed because I was being treated as if I were a poor little old lady, hungry and close to death, because I’m not. I am, in fact, Xena, Warrior Princess, the slovenly version.

I really need to find myself a hermitage in the mountains so I don’t have to interact with humans any more.