sigh Yes.
I think you may have stolen my grandma. She likes navel oranges. Tell her I’ll write. (If only you’d included something about being asked to get something down off a shelf and turning around and finding she’s blocked an aisle in a completely different section and half mowed someone down with a motorized cart, then the illusion would be complete.)
This is fresh in my mind from a visit and taking her Christmas shopping. (It involved wandering motorized scooters, a broken fingernail, and a search for pants that no longer exist.) At least she uses her debit card. But she doesn’t want to use her pin because, “Somebody might get that and get into my account and steal all my money.” Putting the problems with that statement aside, as one often must when talking to my grandma, the desired result is for the cashier to run the transaction as credit so she can sign for it. However, she says she wants them to run the transaction through as “debit,” because “I don’t have a credit account with that bank.” This is normal confusion with an unfamiliar system, but the frustration sets in because I have tried for the past decade to explain it to her. There’s still confusion every single time. Then she starts to get mad at the cashier. Then I have to diffuse and explain tactfully, while she gets embarrassed at her mistake.
The worst part, I think, is the desire to keep her in charge of her own faculties and not impatiently take over. There comes a point, though, when I just have to do it the right way to eliminate confusion and avoid the stink-eye from people behind us in line. In the past few years when I’ve gone shopping with her, she’s had me sort our purchases and just hands me her card to deal with it. 
Some things she’s gotten so passive about, and others she keeps a stranglehold of control on.
She’s also professed her horror and fear of losing her debit card or credit card because someone could “ruin” her with all that information. She’s actually really afraid of losing them. I try to calmly explain that you’re actually better off losing a credit card than cash, as long as you notice it quickly. I say things like, “You should be careful, but there’s really no reason to be afraid. As soon as you report your card stolen, most companies won’t hold you responsible for the money spent and will refund it.” I’ve repeated statments like that I don’t know how many times. I don’t think any of this information really sticks. She just says, “Oh.” I offer to look through her card policy with her, and she says “Oh, no, I’m alright.” I try to help her rather than take over, but if she refuses help, what can you do?
She’s had a stroke and bypass surgery, so I’m grateful that she’s still able to even leave the house and be so high functioning. (She can still talk and reason and putter about, just not walk long distances and, apparently, remember new technical information. Understandable, but I still end up looking like this: :smack: )
My grandpa is the guy holding the line up at the bank for $2 bills and state quarters. $2 bills of all things! Then he’d proudly show them off. At least it sometimes sparked a conversation–but how many times can you pretend to be surprised? His health has gotten worse over the past couple years, so now he’s relying more on my parents for grocery shopping, but in his heyday he’d go to the store every single day and buy the same thing. Say one week he decided he had a hankering for Campbell’s soup for lunch. Well, Monday, he’d go to the store, get one can, a box of crackers, and a bottle of juice or something to drink. He’d eat half the can, then probably throw out the rest of it, complaining about the waste. Then Tuesday, he’d go and get another can and a bag of candy. Then Wednesday, he’d go and get two cans. And so on. Claimed he was saving money, because he spent less at a time, and he might need that money for something else tomorrow. Then he’d gripe about my grandma giving him a list when he went because that took too much time and money.
The Depression really affected his habits. He’d say, “I’d rather die with 80 cents in my pocket than a can a’ beans on the shelf!” I’d say, “But…you’d still be dead, so why does it really matter?” and he’d chuckle like I didn’t know the ways of the world.
But I know that sooner than I think, there I’ll be, the slow old woman doing something odd and not realizing it. Or worse, realizing it. sigh
