The Lady in Red

I've gone back and forth about posting this or not. It's about a certain someone I met last week and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.
But.
She doesn't read blogs, and I won't be adding any personal information anyway.
There was this woman. She isn't the happiest person in the world. In fact, she just might be the most negative person in the world.
We called her "The Lady in Red".



A good portion of us took two trips with her. We had been warned by others who knew her....but we didn't know just how big of a treat we were in for.

Day One: Jane was bending down trying to get a close up of a plant at the boardwalk at Cranberry Glade, and Lady in Red wanting to get by. She pointed ahead and belched at Mary, "I want to go THERE!" and then lifted her leg and acted like she was going to kick Jane into the bog.
O-kaaay.
Later, she showed off her huge can of Bear Repellent, that also moonlighted as Human Repellent. She then worked into the conversation that she had a "Carry Permit"...as in Carry a Gun.
O-kaaay.....Holy Sh*t.

The next trip we had with her was to Muddlety. This turned out to be my best day, which I will expound on later.
I wanted to take the back seat, to give others a chance to be closer to the doors. (There's a lot of in and out with those vans, so I was really taking one for the team.)
Lady in Red heard me and bellowed, "I HAVE MY STUFF BACK THERE ALREADY!"
I peeked at the back seat. Room for two more people, at least.
O-kaaay. Now she had pissed me off.

So I climbed on back and settled in right next to her.

Hand to God...every single breath out of her was full of negative, nasty, snippy crap.
Now, any other time, I probably would have either a. Shut up tight and hated her silently...
or b. Tell her to go somewhere else and remove the stick from her a**.
This was when something magical happened. I decided that it would be my mission to make this evil, ugly, sorry woman say SOMETHING positive. I would smile. I would joke.
I would turn on the ol' Susan Charm.

I informed everyone else of my plan, whispering that I was gonna make this b*tch smile.

Here's how it went:
Every time she would say something negative, I would catch it, spin it around and send it back to her, charged with positivity.

Lady in Red: This road is too bumpy. I hate this road.
Me: Isn't this fun? We don't have roads like this in Ohio!

Lady in Red: Why are they using those bird calls?! We don't need to hear any more bird songs around here!!
Me: Isn't it neat how Keith used that iPod and brought that Hooded Warbler so close to us????

Lady in Red: (as the sun came out briefly) Well, this sun won't last! It will just heat up the clouds and it will rain again!
Me: All this rain sure makes the mountains beautiful and lush, doesn't it?

And then it happened...
She paused, then said, "You're right. All this rain makes everything so green."
And then. She. SMILED. At. Me.

I smiled back, and glanced at some of the others in the van...winking and mentally high-fiving them.
Gotcha.

P.S.....Mary does a KILLER impression of the Lady in Red. I have video of it.
: )