Don't Judge a Person by Their Cover-up (standard:humor, 908 words)
Author: Godspenman	Added: Aug 01 2021	Views/Reads: 871/584	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Even though I know what I know, my job is to encourage someone like aunt Elsie and try to give them what they need at the time.

Have you ever had one of those Déjà vu moments? The other week I was in
the shopping mall to pick up some items for the Gracious Mistress of 
the Parsonage. She shops so much that I have to help her on occasion. 

On this occasion, I was walking down the mall and stopped dead in my
tracks. Coming at me was someone that looked like my old aunt Elsie. 
She had the same hairdo, wearing the same clothes, and I was shocked 
because aunt Elsie died over 20 years ago. 

I did have a moment of temptation that I wanted to go up and ask her if
she was aunt Elsie. I feared that she would answer me, "Yes, and what's 
that to you?" 

That would have convinced me that it was indeed aunt Elsie. 

I just let her walk by and tried not even to glance in her direction. 

Aunt Elsie was one of the relatives in my family that goes way back.
Once you met her, you would never forget her for shore. She was one of 
those kinds of people. 

What you thought of her the first time you met her was not who she
really was. 

At first, you thought she was a sweet, darling older lady. She did have
an infectious smile when you first met her. But believe me, first 
impressions sometimes are the opposite of reality. 

I suppose everybody has an aunt like aunt Elsie. She has taught me one
thing: don't judge people by their cover up. They may not be who you 
think they are. And such was aunt Elsie. 

She was always trying to bring everything to focus on her. 

If you went to a family picnic, the whole conversation had to be focused
on her. No matter what anybody was saying, she would interrupt them and 
say something about herself that she wanted people to know. It didn't 
matter if what she was saying was true or not, just that she was 
getting the attention she wanted. 

She always wanted people to think that she was a lot sicker than she
actually was. 

As soon as she would walk into a crowd, she would begin coughing and
then blow her nose. That little act would draw attention to her, 
attention she wanted. It didn't matter to her if the attention was 
good, bad, or indifferent. What mattered to her was the attention. 

She wanted people to think she had some physical problems, and often she
would walk very slowly with her distinctive limp. Sometimes she would 
use a cane and go struggling along, which usually got the attention she 
wanted. 

When she was struggling along like that, people would open doors, smile
at her, and give her a good greeting. 

She would say, “Thank you so much. I really need all the help I can
get.” 

They would think they were doing a good deed for the day, but the only
thing they were doing was playing up to her narcissism. I must say she 
was an excellent actress and nobody knew it. 

One day she asked if I could take her to the mall to do some shopping. 

When she asked me this, I thought this was my opportunity to determine
what was going on with her. 

“Oh,” I said enthusiastically, “I'd be glad to take you to the mall.” 

We got to the mall, I helped her out of the car and helped her as she
limped up to the door for the shopping mall. 

When she got in, I said, "Aunt Elsie, can you take care of yourself? I
need to go to the other end of the mall and pick up some items." 


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