Dirt

As a kid, I had one friend. Her name was Sam and she is my cousin. We lived right next to eachother so we were basically raised as sisters. Rarely a day would go by that we weren't playing in the yard together. We liked dirt, never wore shoes, would strip naked every chance we got, and did a lot of stuff that would have gotten any other kid a butt whoopin' of epic proportions. We were fun kids, and my mom loves telling stories about us. This is one of my favorites.

We grew up in the country so there were lots of things to do. And by 'do' I mean destroy. There were several lawn mowers, edgers, tractors, golf-carts, chain saws, and other things that begged for us to "work on them." All of this equipment was stored in the "shed." It was an ominous building which was really just a five car garage that only had siding on the back wall. It was set back from the house and right along the tree line of our property. If we wanted to do something we knew we shouldn't do, Sam and I would head for the shed. One day, we must have overheard Papa saying how the lawn mower tank was empty (as in, out of gas) because we decided to help out. We struck out for thet shed to solve this problem. Thirty minutes and two very dirty hands later, we'd done it. We'd filled up the gas tank. With dirt.

Later, when granny asked us what we'd done, our only response was "Ain't we smart!"

Guilt

I read a lot of books. Mostly mindless ones that involve lots of things I can't talk about here. My favorite series is the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich. So far, there are 15 and I've read every single one; some more than once. Stephanie is from New Jersey and has a devout Catholic mother who is forever crossing herself. And drinking. In every book, she references the guilt trips her mom puts on her and somehow ties it to her Catholic faith. Usually, she'll bribe her with food to get Stephanie to do what she wants, but when food fails, guilt comes through.

My granny is a Southern Baptist and the woman can lay on the guilt like she's icing a three layer cake with a gallon of buttercream. Granny's weapon of choice is sickness.

Two years ago, The Colonel (as papa and I refer to her) fell deathly ill and was hospitalized. She had double pneumonia, a ruptured spleen she suffered from falling off the bed, and was in kidney failure. Before that, she had diverticulitis- which is a condition in which your intestines get in a hot mess and you risk rupture, massive infection, and sometimes death. To put it mildly, when she gets sick, she is in bad shape. Not once during this entire time did she ask me to come home. She would just say that she was really not feeling well and for me to keep my mind on schoolwork. I always learned of the severity of her problems after she had recovered.

Two weeks ago I was going on a girl's dinner date when I decided to call granny up and see how things were. As she does at some point during every conversation, she asked me when I was coming home. When I told her that it might be two weeks before I made it home again, she broke out the buttercream and trowel. "Oh... ok. I've just not been feeling too good. I think it might be because of the diverticulitis." The diverticulitis? The case of it that she had a year and a half ago? Didn't the doctor say she was fully recovered? As the wheels turned in my mind, a smile crept onto my face. She's at it again. Guilt tripping me into going home. A novice at this game would have rushed home, knowing the severity of the condition, but I had recently discovered her guise and had armed my defenses.

Around the time that the pollen struck this spring, Granny came down with a cold. She called me one day and I could barely recognize her voice. "Hey baby, when you coming home?" I told her it would be another week or so before I came home. "Oh. Okay. I think I'm going to see Dan today. This stuff might turn into pneumonia if I don't." See a pattern here? See what she does? She likes to use past serious illnesses to get me home. I told her that I'd be coming home two weekends in a row, for 3 days each time beginning the weekend after next. Presto. Her voice was a clear as a bell and she sounded so gleeful I expected her to break out into song. No more cold. You see, when she finally gets her way, these sicknesses magically disappear. She tells me that I am the only thing that makes her feel better. Does it get any thicker?

As I grow older, I find myself more and more like The Colonel. I use my ailments to my advantage, and if I think throwing a guilt trip out there will get me my way, I'll do it in a heartbeat. Even my friends are catching on and turning the tables on me. Sometimes I wish I could tell Stephanie Plum to eat her cake, take her grandma to the weekly viewings at the funeral home, or just have kids already. Whatever guilt trip her mom lays on her is nothing compared to the stunts granny can pull. Those Baptists really know how it's done.

Socks

When I was little, I used to wear rubber bands around my wrist like they were bangles. For a time, my papa's mother, Granny Mary, lived with us. She was a woman so set in her ways, a hurricane couldn't blow her off course. She would always grab my wrist and take the rubber bands off. She'd say, "You're going to cord your wrist and cut off circulation! Your hand will fall off!" She would cut a slit in her socks right at the top so that they didn't "cord her ankles" and her socks would just slouch around her skinny little ankles. Then, she would complain that her socks were too big.

Fast forward 15 years and I'm still wearing rubberbands around my wrists. It's more a matter of fuction over fashion now, though. Granny Mary has passed on since, but she passed down her sock cutting habit to her son. You see, my papa has chicken legs. There's no way around it. When I was about 12 years old, I remember him putting on some denim bermuda shorts he had cut off back in the 70's to come out to the pool with us. His legs were so white they were blinding. And skinny! He always says some nonsense about his legs being in peak physical condition, but they're all bone. I say that to say this, there is absolutely no way that a sock is going to cord his leg to the point that it needs to be amputated. Regardless of this, he cuts his socks just the way his mother did. In his sock drawer are countless pairs of socks, all neatly folded and in their places, with a little "v" notch cut out at the top. Granny and I always laugh and talk about it when we come across them in the laundry.

It seems that the older he gets, the more he becomes like Granny Mary. Let's just hope he doesn't start hiding his money around the house!

Granny and Papa

Meet Granny, beautiful inside and out... Just don't cross her!

And Papa... I can't say his name without smiling.

Through many twists and turns, I came to live with my grandparents: Granny and Papa. Granny is a matriarch to say the least and Papa is as cool as a cucumber- even under pressure. They will be the source of most of my stories. These two are beyond hilarious. You'll love them as much as I do in no time. They'll have their own section here, so check them out anytime you need a good laugh. I've got stories for days.