Cringing Never Loses Its Appeal...

I spent this afternoon with my Granny, who was in a talkative and reminiscing mood. Among other stories, she regaled me with an anecdote of my childhood which never fails to make me squirm. My other granny and my great-aunts have told me an almost identical story as well so I'm afraid I can't really attribute it to a failing memory. The moral of the story apparently is "what a clever child you were", but, personally, I could think of instances where my juvenile cleverness manifested itself in more flattering (to myself) ways. The story goes as follows: I was a fat child and my Mum who was not blind to this fact tried hard to stop relatives, including her own mother, from giving me sweet treats all the time. This of course never stopped me from asking them if they had brought me any sweets as soon as we were out of earshot of my mother. When they replied that they felt bad betraying my Mum who had explicitly instructed them not to give me any sweets I allegedly replied that I had found the solution to their dilemma: they just had to leave their (hand)bags in the hallway where I would help myself to the sweets. Thus, they would not have to lie to my Mum's face and I would get what I wanted.

Diplomacy at its best, eh?