"You Know Too Much"

   I had an elderly woman and her daughter come through my line, and at first they weren't so much to commit to memory. Nothing really unusual, just a daughter helping her mother. Then when the time had come to pay, the elderly woman hands her daughter a very large amount of bankcards. Split payments aren't hard to do, so that was no big deal, but the daughter tried to apologize to me anyway.
   "I'm so sorry. I don't know why she has all these cards." I assured her that this is no big deal, and as she started sliding them the elderly woman is telling her to put twenty dollars on this bankcard, thirty on that bankcard, one hundred on the next and her daughter is fussing, "Mom, you have too many cards, why can't you put all your money in one spot."
   "What if something happens to the bank? All my money would be gone," and she gives the daughter the final card, and the daughter slides it and puts in the pin without having to ask her mom the pin number. She hasn't had to ask her mom for any of the pins; clearly, paying in this manner is familiar to her.
    The elderly woman, however, gets this cunning look in her eye, and in as ominous voice as she can muster, intones "You know too much."
    "What? What are you talking about?" the daughter demands.
    "You know too much," the woman repeats, "You aren't supposed to know all my pins."
    "Momma, we do this every week," the frazzled daughter says.
   "I was watching Investigative Report-"
   "Oh lord," the daughter interrupts, her face having a 'here we go again' expression on,"You watch too much TV."
   "And they were talking about identity theft," the elderly woman continues, as if the daughter hadn't spoken, "Everybody isn't supposed to know your numbers."
   "But Momma, I'm not everybody; I'm somebody," the daughter exclaims, exasperated.
   "You never can tell." The elderly woman says. The daughter walks away in a huff as I hand the elderly woman her lengthy receipt, and I am laughing by now, because I can't help it. Frankly, I want to get a bag of popcorn and sit back and watch this show: these two are hilarious. As the elderly woman takes the receipt, the she gives me a huge grin and a realization strikes me.  She has been messing with her daughter's head the whole time! This is great, and all I can think is that I want to be just like this woman when I get older. She's exactly the type of woman who whacks the unsuspecting with her cane and causes mayhem in the nursing home. In other words: this woman is now my new role model.