Stealing plums from asian ladies on the bus

My parents were in town last week and my mother told me this story. My mother is a wonderful friendly woman, the sort of person who actually smiles at others and talks to strangers on buses. I thought this story was amusing. Actually, I still giggle when I think about it. The bus from where I live is generally full of yuppies such as myself during primary commute times, and generally full of Asian people from various places else wise. It is San Francisco after all. My mother was raised in New Jersey and her family history is fully German until she married my father, who is 1/2 Mexican and 1/2 Italian. My mother took a Spanish class last year to help her travel a bit in Honduras and Guatemala, but she can only do basic greetings and some numbers. It isn't natural for her to speak Spanish.

Anyway, she was on the bus and it was crowded so she was standing and a seat finally opened up and she offered to an older Asian lady next to her who told my mother to take it. My mother sat down and offered to hold the Asian woman's bag on her lap so she wouldn't have to stand and hold her bag. People can be so nice. As you will see, exactly how my mother offered to hold the woman's bag is a little vague based on the woman's response. My mother showed me what she did, some sort of sign that I'm not sure I would have interpreted as "Excuse me ma'am, but since you were so nice to allow me to sit, allow me to hold your bag for you while we continue on the bus." The woman, instead of saying no or ignoring my mother or putting her bag on my mother's lap, opens her bag and starts putting plums from her bag into my mother's bright yellow bag. My mother takes the plums out and puts them back in the Asian woman's bag in some sort of back and forth that must have been just fantastic for other people on the bus and would seem a bit odd even on a Seinfeld episode. After a little bit of this back and forth, my mother just keeps a few plums and, as she told me, "I kept the plums I didn't want to be rude. Then I ate one so I wouldn't be rude, I know you aren't supposed to eat on the bus..." as if her eating on the bus was the strange part of the story. Then, for some inexplicable reason, my mother thanks the woman with a "Gracias" and after I laughed at that, she just told me it seemed right and natural. I'll have to learn how to say "Thank you" in various Asian dialects and teach my mother for her next trip. Such a cosmopolitan family I have.

Quite frankly, I have no idea what the Asian woman was thinking, if she spoke English, or if she thought my mother was asking her for plums. Big white woman robbing her on the bus perhaps? Regardless, for the rest of the week we kept sending my mother on the bus hoping she could pick up dinner. I'll have to send her on a bus full of Mexicans next visit and tell her not to come back until she has tamales. And the plums? They were great.