Someone Else's Granny

There’s a bus that runs from our village to the nearest town. Not often, though – only when it feels like going and when there’s gas, so that means the village folk are always helping each other out. If somebody’s going to Toropets, they’ll bring back a batch of bread and pick up medicines from the pharmacy and drop off a TV for repair.

Well, so our neighbor Vitalik – who’s famous for having taken his car apart a couple of years ago but would never buy parts for it, on account of he’s lazy and he’s got no money – called my husband to tell him that this one granny was needing a ride to Toropets. The husband’s face fell, but he agreed anyway. “She’s not a chatterbox, is she?” he asks.

“Not a bit of it,” Vitalik replies. “She’s such a quiet old thing. Tight-lipped, even, seeing as how she’s stone deaf.”