My grandma cracks me up. She doesn’t mean to. I mean, she’s old and she doesn’t mean to be funny. It just comes out that way. My parents aren’t nearly as amused as I am, but she lives with them and I guess they can’t see the funny through the frustration sometimes. She reminds me a little of Bernice on Designing Women occasionally, only she’s not quite as outgoing.
One morning we were sitting in the living room and she asked me out of the blue, ” Do you think that woman is going to be President?” Her voice was just dripping with grapefruit juice or something really acidic.
Rather surprised because I thought she was napping through whatever sappy Lifetime Christmas movie my Dad had left on the electronic babysitter, I looked up from my pitiful knitting and replied after a hesitation, “I suppose it’s possible.” I tried to be as neutral as I could because I wasn’t planning on voting for “that woman” but I didn’t want to make it seem like voting for her was the wrong thing to do.
“If she does, do you think she’ll bring her husband?”
“Well, I assume so. Presidents generally bring their spouses to the White House.”
“But they’re divorced!” she exclaimed rather wide-eyed and scandalized.
I was rather taken aback by this. “Uh- No…they aren’t divorced.”
“They’re not?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Oh…” She put a hand to her cheek as if in dismay and just stared off into space as if she had to resort everything she knew now.
Thinking about it now just makes me chuckle. “That Woman.” Can’t have a divorced woman in the White House, especially if she brings her ex-husband with her. That would be way too scandalously modern.
Another day, my parents had invited their new neighbors over for some wine and crackers or something ridiculously snobby-sounding — whatever, it just meant I couldn’t eat the Gouda. They were in one of those ridiculous tizzies where they try to make the house look incredibly neat and not at all like it looks the rest of the time while people are breathing and sitting. Anyway, I even had to put away my knitting and they weren’t even my company and I’ll never see them again. However, they wanted my Grandma to go change clothes, at the very least her shirt. They were nagging her about it.
And finally, Grandma said, “Well, it was clean when I put it on yesterday.”
Grandma is in constant hope that Ugly Betty will get her braces off each week. She slips food to the dog under the table. She insists she’s not hungry for lunch or dinner but asks for a bowl of ice cream instead. She not only sleeps in her clothes but also in her glasses and then doesn’t understand why the frames are bent out of shape. She’s impossible. She’s frustrating. She drives my parents crazy. She cracks me up.
But then, I live in Maine and they live in New Mexico and I’m sure that has something to do with it. 
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Oh, I was soooooo laughing when I read this, because my grandmother is exactly the same way! The things that come out of that woman’s mouth amazes me. I often wonder if I will be the same way when I am her age.
Grandma is in constant hope that Ugly Betty will get her braces off each week…
Ha! ha! he! he!
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