One of the best I've ever seen...
Some years back I worked at a different sort of factory, one where we blended the various chemicals and such to make plastic. The stuff was then extruded into long threads about three or four millimeters across (I’m estimating, based on memory) which were then chopped into little pellets of plastic to be poured into injection molding machines to make the familiar plastic things you see around you every day, from the keys that you’re typing on to the radiator fan in your car. My part in all of this was in the Quality Control group- we took samples, molded them into test bars and did physical testing on them to ensure their strength and so on.

In the lab I worked in were a number of middle-aged women who did the actual testing. They ranged in age from about 50 to 60, I would guess, and had been there for about thirty years. (As a guy in his late 30s, you can imagine what it was like for me there as the only person with functional testicles, including the boss, hurr hurr hurr…) Not exactly a prepossessing group, really- they tended to either be past the point of really caring what they looked like and had gone seriously to seed, or were still wearing hairstyles from the early 70s with lots of hairspray and perms. The term “frumpy” may have been coined to describe that group.

Anyway, one of them was this short, rotund little woman with poofy grey hair permed up on her head, big goggly glasses and drawn-on eyebrows. Remember Alice from “The Brady Bunch”? Make her about a foot shorter and eighty pounds heavier and you’re close.

The interesting thing about her? She made pretty good money on the side as a private investigator.

I shit you not. She had a concealed weapon permit and was pretty much always carrying a gun, and apparently was well versed in its use. She had never had to use it, mind you, but I don’t imagine that she would have hesitated too much. Behind those glasses were a rather steely pair of pale grey eyes and a very sharp mind- she did the New York Times crossword puzzles in pen during her lunch hour, and was seldom stumped by them.

When she mentioned her sideline I thought she was joking, until she showed me her gun. Her car was a Monte Carlo, rather nondescript but with a very powerful engine- and I have seen her drive it, and she’s good. But as she pointed out, who would ever expect a woman who looked like someone’s granny to be an investigator? Who would suspect that it was her who busted a tail light so a cop would have reason to pull someone over? Who would look twice at her walking around a motel?

I sometimes wonder how many people she’s conned with her elderly-redneck-granny routine. Because, believe me, you really wouldn’t want her on your tail…

(The best part? Her first name was one that was last fashionable in the 40s or so, and her last name was a synonym for renegade. I swear, it was like some strange parody of a film noir, Mickey Spillane character- if I told you her actual name you wouldn’t believe me. I mean, who would believe in someone named something like Aggie Rebel? And yet there she was…)
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 18 Oct 2007, 22:04, 3 replies)

Fantastic
I now wish I had a crime-fighting Granny. I'd call her the Blue-rinsed Crusader.
(Pavlov's Frog figures no-one really reads sigs anyway, Thu 18 Oct 2007, 22:50, closed)

how funny!
never trust old people!!

i've seen women like that before. i've even worked with them.

When i was a bail bond agent, the toughest person we had in the office was a 60+ year old woman who looked so frail you thought a stiff wind would break in half. Whenever we had a bond-jumpper, we sent her to look for them!

Pat found them every time! Gotta love Pat!
( flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Fri 19 Oct 2007, 4:17, closed)

oh my god
I think you know my Aunt Dimple!
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Fri 19 Oct 2007, 5:16, closed)