Mom

I haven't talked about my mom yet, and I'm not going to get into it quite yet. BUT, I had to share with you the page that she "liked" on facebook tonight.

Are you ready?

"How do I feel about gun control? Break into my house and find out."

Goodnight.

The Widow's Peak

Every little girl looks forward to the day when she can shave her legs. Well, I did anyway. My mom always left razors in the bath tub so I would sneak and shave a teenincey patch of my leg when she wasn't looking. It was never more than a little 2" square that wasn't noticable unless you were looking for it. I did this about once a month, if I was feeling froggy.

One day, I was in class and my teacher (whom I found hideous even at the young age of 7) commented on her Widow's Peak hairline and how she thought it was so unfortunate. With that five second comment, I became obsessed. I was convinced that I had a Widow's Peak and began plotting ways to get rid of it.

I tried pulling it out, but that hurt too much. I tried pulling my hair straight back but that was a backfire. I tried parting my hair in strange ways, but it always just looked stupid.

Finally, one night at bath time, it dawned on me.

"Why don't I just shave it off?" Wow! Why hadn't I thought about this before?

So I did it. I shaved a tiny patch of hair off the front of my head. No one even noticed. I was so proud of myself that I even told my cousin about it. She thought I was smart, too.

I failed to realize that eventually this hair would grow out. And it did. In my third grade pictures, there's a little patch of hair that is growing straight down my forehead. To this day, that little section of hair grows in an opposite direction from the rest of my hair. I'm still feeling the effects from that one.


**I will take this opportunity to say that I do NOT have a Widow's Peak. I was delusional and razor happy.

Backwards

I have this problem with numbers. And words. And letters. I mix them up all the time. I'm notorious for flipping names, switching numbers, anything that I can mix up will get mixed up.

Before I moved to the big city and started working in a big building, I worked in a smaller town in a little women's clothing store. In the back of this store was a stock room with a bulletin board with all kinds of useful information. On this bulletin board was the weekly schedule that would be posted a week in advance so that everyone knew their shifts and whatnot. I dutifully wrote down my schedule every week in my planner and transferred it into ical once I got home. I was so organized that way. But...

My organization was plagued by my inability to keep numbers straight. I was forever reading someone else's time and writing it down as my own. I must have been late for 10+ shifts. My tactic of making up for this was selling the heck out of whatever we had to remind my manager that I didn't suck at my job and maybe my stellar saleswomanship would compensate for my perpetual knack for writing down my schedule wrong. It worked almost all of the time, but I always felt terrible about it.

Something happened when my bff became co-manager my schedule mishaps came much less frequently. Thank bob. As the end of my tenure at this store came to a close, I counted my lucky stars that I made it on time and didn't get the "Hey, Sunny... coming to work today?" phone calls as frequently.

Now, one thing you should know about me is this. I can take the heat. If I mess up, I will take the blame and heat. Nothing makes me feel worse than letting someone down who was depending on me. It stresses me out. Really it does.

See the little section below here? "Blocked?" Well, this is one story that I try my damnedest to block out. I really, seriously try. But I can't. My "friend," who we'll call Martha in this story, and from here on out (since her house looks like Martha Stewart vomited decorations into it) simply refuses to let me forget it.

One day before opening a co-worker called in to get her schedule. I wrote down her two shifts and happily relayed the message to her. Didn't think anything else about it. *dupid dupid dupid*

A week later I learn that she had come into work on a Saturday morning only to find out that I'd given her the WRONG SCHEDULE! Not only had I given her the wrong schedule, but it had inconvenienced her something seriously. She had out of town guests who had to leave early, and on and on and on. I cut Martha off and started singing and stuck my fingers in my ears to hear the trainwreck of misfortune that I'd caused.

Anyway, this story gives me anxiety and now you know about it.


**I really hope Martha hates this name as much as I hate her bringing up this story.

Blocked

Over the years, I have developed a unique ability to cope with embarrassing moments in my life. Rather than deal with the embarrassment and move on, I block them out. Everyday, I actively block events and people from my memory. This is a useful tool, as I have embarrassed myself more times than I can count, particulary when I was younger. A new section on this blog will be devoted to the stories that linger. I just can't block them out, no matter how hard I try. And, oh, I've tried.

Don't Judge Me, Part II

A few days ago I was caught in public looking like a middle school sloot. Short shorts, tank top, and platform flip flops. Ok, maybe I looked like I should be doing pedicures for a living. But I thought I'd learned my lesson: Always look presentable.

I didn't.

Last night, Faller and I decided to have wine and lounge around my new apartment. The wine ran out early in the game, so we decided to run to the gas station to grab a bottle of BP's finest. Much, much to my dismay, they didn't sell wine. So we went a little further up the road and found a Publix. Faller and I strolled inside and quickly picked up a bottle of wine. And some pepperoni from the deli. And cheese. Ahh, such fat kids we are. I was impressed with our two minute shopping trip I must say. Once we got into the line, we naturally gravitated toward the tabloids, where we delved in.

Then I saw him. Oh he was gorgeous. Perfect. Straight from heaven this man was. Tall, dark, blonde, scruffy, still in his workout gear. I spotted him walking up behind us and I said, "Look behind you babydoll," as I moved forward to scan my card and whatnot.

Let me back up. Did I forget to tell you what we were wearing? Ahhh, yes. See, the Chain Smoker from days before hadn't taught me my lesson. I'd dug up some old navy blue, spandex, nike capri pants that I wore in my days of kick boxing. I was also wearing a University of Georgia t-shirt that had seen better days. This time, I had my havianas. But, no watch and no purse. And no bra. Faller wasn't much better. I'd handed her an old pair of gaucho pants, a Miller Lite tee I'd scammed off of one of the promotional models they send out to bars, and she'd found some sparkly sandals under my bed. She looked like she got dressed in the dark. Did I mention the gaucho pants that I assured her would be fine because, hey, we were only running up to the gas station! Oh, and no bra.

Returning to the story at hand. Faller lets out a few choice words and dashes up beside me. Laughter was uncontrollable as I was signing. I thought it couldn't get any worse than a cold grocery store when you don't have on a bra. Then he spoke. He. The angel.

"Do I have something on my face? You two cracked up when I walked up here."

Damn. Mental head-slap. I thought that maybe we looked so bad that we were invisible to him. Nope.

 No, nothing was on his face other than absolute gorgeousness. But, in a moment of panic, I said "No. She's was just telling me how ugly you are."

Mental head-slap. What? Why? What would possess me to say this? I don't know. I guess I wanted to throw Faller under the bus and put the attention on her rather than my hot mess self. I failed. I honestly don't even remember what else was said. Time stood still and all I wanted was to fast forward.

You would think that our exit from the grocery store would be the end of the embarrassment. And you would be wrong.

As we were leaving, we saw him walking out. So Faller had the brilliant idea to drive past him. She didn't consider that this meant driving down the aisle in the wrong direction.

We are so lame. And embarrassing.

I can tell you one thing. And it's that I'll be wearing dresses and heels to that Publix until the day I die.

That, and I'm never going braless again.

Yellow

It's not uncommon for someone to ask me if my favorite color is yellow, given my name and all. But when I think of yellow, I think of my friend. The Moaner. You'll meet her tomorrow, but I want you to hear this story. Because it's hilarious. To me anyway. If you don't think so- then pretend you didn't read it and spare my feelings.

Last summer, I moved in with a dear friend of mine into her well apointed condo. To paint a mental image for you, think of an easter basket. Now think of a bomb. Put the bomb in the basket. Detonate it. Taa Daa!! Her apartment. Every surface is covered in some sort of pastel creation. And the blankets on the couch. Ohhhhh the blankets. Ever been in a guest bathroom and seen that hand towel? The one that you know is there for you to use, yet you are hesitant because you know that the second you do, it's no longer perfect, and it's your fault. You ruined the aesthetic. How selfish.

But blankets. They're everywhere. Fragile quilts from a bygone era when Grandmothers sat in circles, sewing these beautiful quilts to pass down to future generations so that their descendents wouldn't shiver on a cold winter's nights. Clearly they didn't see the invention of fleece or sewing machines in the future. Regardless, several of these quilts made their way into her living room. And I don't like to move them. But back to yellow.

When I moved into my apartment, quite a few neighbors were moving out. Embarking on their individual journeys out into the real world. And leaving their junk furniture at the garbage facility in our complex. Lots of furniture. We became quite the scavengers. On one random passing, she found it. A wicker chair reminiscent of one she'd seen on a magazine cover. It was painted yellow and had a pink chenille coushin. Adorable, really. But the one she found was hideous. It looked like it housed a whole colony of bugs. But she saw the potential and snapped it up and thew it in the bed of her truck.

About this time, I had decided to paint a few end tables black to match my new bedroom decor, so I was in the market for some spray paint. As luck would have it, so was she. So we went to Walmart and spent a good fifteen minutes staring at the paint cans, trying to figure out which would be best. Gloss? Flat? Primer?! I grabbed two cans of black, and she got three cans of yellow. Surely three cans will be enough to paint a small wicker chair, right?

Wrong. Dead wrong. Six cans later, we had successfully painted a parking spot sunshine yellow, but the chair was soaking up the paint. We didn't know what to do. In a stroke of genius, she thought to call her friend, whose boyfriend knew all about it. In about .16 seconds he told us we needed primer. Ahhhhh, yes. Primer. So, after the third trip to Walmart, we had two cans of primer, the last four cans of paint in the store, and some of our confidence back. Boyfriend was right, and we soon had one yellow chair. Success!

*I might also mention here that we had quite the scare when I realized the possibility that what yellow paint didn't make it onto the pavement or chair miiiiggghhhtttt have accidentally blown all over the black mustang beside us. But it didn't. Whew. That were close. There's no denying yellow spray paint when every neighbor you have saw you out in the parking lot.

Fast forward 12 hours and Moaner and I were painting my new bedroom the most beautiful shade of grey. It was Ralph Lauren paint, Orion Grey. I was obsessed. This was around the time I had a little grey addiction. Ok big.  Grey paint, grey bedding, grey cardigans, grey jewelry... you get it. My little helper was sitting on the ground doing a horrendous job at trimming out my windows when I went to hand her the phone. Her girlfriend with the boyfriend had called to check the progress of the chair. When she looked up at me, I saw them. Two completely yellow nostrils. I don't know how to explain it. Except to say that her nose looked like someone had swabbed the inside of it with a hilighter.

I laughed so hard I might have had to sit down and cross my legs. Then realized that wasn't working so I ran to the bathroom. That might have happened.

So now you know. When I think yellow, I think of her. And her yellow nose hairs.

Faller

The Faller will be the first in my Friends series. Let me preface this by saying that her name will be perhaps the most appropriate of all nicknames that shall be formulated hereafter. The Faller falls. Every day. Multiple times a day. If she's not falling, then she's thinking about not falling, and her feet are plotting against her.

Faller is a beautiful girl with an incredible wit about her. She's always doing or saying something hilarious, but in a Will Ferrell not-trying-to-be-funny way. She'll probably tell me she's insulted for the comparison.

My first Faller in action memory occured at our favorite hang out, a bar back in our college town where we could be found many week nights, and certainly every weekend night. We hadn't been friends for long, so I had yet to hear of her inexplicable tendency to wind up on the ground.

On this particular evening, she had been on a date night or something of the sort, so she was wearing a short dress and cute sandals. I still want to sandals. I might steal them when she's not looking. Faller was perched up on a bar stool outside on the patio, talking to a circle of 3 friends. Myself included. Behind faller was a picnic table, where a homeless man with an uncanny resemblence to St. Nick was taking a nap. And by taking a nap I mean passed out.

I don't know exactly what transpired to make her turn and look back, but when she did, Faller's chair went back with her, onto Santa. Not only did she fall, but she kicked my drink out of my hand, which propmtly went airborn, then descended back down- onto her. Santa was startled out of his nap, and quickly asked her if SHE was okay. "Sir i have a home and more than one pair of shoes, are you okay?" was her response. Classic. This was the first of many falls.

The other, and most infamous of all her many falls, incident that I will talk about in this post is the Mystery Fall. We don't know quite how it happened actually. One Sunday morning, I called her to be let into her apartment to retrieve my belongings. It took her a good 5 minutes to get down stairs, and when she opened the door I knew why. Faller had two scrape/gashes on each of her shins. It looked like someone had hit her across her legs with a lead pipe wrapped in sand paper. I would have cried. I guess it was business as usual for her.

The next day, my charitable self took her to the doctor that her mother had located for her to have her legs checked out. Hands down THE most memorable/hilarious doctor's visit of my lifetime. I guess the fact that we had to drive through the ghetto to get there should have been an indicator of what was lying ahead.

We pulled up to an office that looked like a clinic for homeless people funded by a non-profit organization that probably couldn't even afford phones. It was that kind of place. Once we were in, a troll of a woman entered the room. I thought she was the Nurses Aid. Turns out, she was the doctor. This woman had to turn sideways to get through the door. She spoke in one word phrases, and barked answers. Once inside the room, she sat on a stool and scooted herself around the room. The fact that Faller had no clue what had happened to her didn't help matters. Try explaining a drunken escapade to a 400 pound woman with toenails thicker than cardboard and feet jammed into sandals that look like she shoes my dad wears out in the yard to scoop up dog poop. You get nowhere.

After the roughest examination I've ever witnessed, the doctor said "Looks bruised." Oh, really doc? No kidding. She gave the wounded Faller nothing. No pain killers, no sympathy, no nothing.

So, we got her crutches and hobbled back to the car. And I laughed all the way home.

*Our best estimation is that she fell on the stairs in the alley leading up to her apartment, although we can't rationalize a way in which she could fall and sustain such an injury. And she doesn't remember. So maybe she DID get hit with a pipe.

Friends

My job allows me much downtime, and I've decided to allocate a good chunk of that time to this blog. I'm starting a new series of posts about my friends. You'll meet them all at some point, and many will be mentioned more than once. To keep them anonymous, I'll come up with an appropriate nickname for each of them.

little

This blog is my inaugural rant. I get on a soap box at least once a day, but this time I happened to have my computer in front of me.

It seems that the latest obsession in, oh, I don't know- the WORLD- is miniature everything. Everywhere I go, I'm bombarded with the mini's. Mini nail polish that can't possibly paint all ten fingers and toes. Mini shopping carts that hold a 12 pack of coke and loaf of bread, but throw you for a loop when you try to buy paper towels and toilet paper- heaven forbid you need both. Mini hamburgers have been around for a while, but there's something delightful about the greasy little burger sandwiched between those steamed buns with pickles and mustard. It almost makes me happy about clogging my arteries and ensuring that, by thirty, I'll be harnessing myself to a treadmill every day. Yes, many things are miniature. I like some small things, like the burgers and... ok maybe it's just the burgers. Oh, and my friend once had mini sticks of butter- how fantastic! But that's where it ends.

Tonight, as I settled in to watch Good Eats on FoodNetwork, my beloved Granny asked me if I wanted anything from the kitchen while she was headed that way. "Sure, bring me a Dr. Pepper if you don't mind," I said. I heard her getting the ice from the ice maker, and heard her break the plastic rings that held the bottles together. As she handed them to me, I said, "Thanks!" My thanks was premature. I looked up to see the most obnoxious, annoying bottle I've ever seen. It was a 12 oz. bottle. Now, I know that this is the same size of a can, but when you are expecting a bottle, you expect 16 oz. I had already decided that I would only drink half of it to save myself the sodium and whatnot. That plan was shot to hell when I saw the menacing little bottle. But I drank it. In maybe 2.5 sips.

My animosity toward small sodas had been buliding since Granny began buying the miniature cans a few years back. This was her way of solving the "half-full leftover can" problem. The first time I saw those heinous little red cans, I wanted to turn and pretend they weren't there. That was 6 years ago, and now she's switched over to bottles.

Fast forward a few hours, and the midnight munchies hit me. I'd seen a couple of personal sized cheese pizzas in the freezer a few days ago so I figured I'd throw one in the oven and it'd hit the spot. When I opened the freezer, I saw that the pizzas were no more. I don't know where they went. Maybe the dog ate them. Except we don't have a dog. Maybe I imagined them. What sat in their place was bagle bites. Now, many of you may love the bite sized creations. I know I used to. But when I put the thing in my mouth, it nearly burnt the skin off my tongue and the roof of my mouth. In a panic, I grabbed another Dr. Pepper out of the fridge and drank the remaining half of it. I ran out before the fire was extinguished. I was reduced to gulping from a gallon of milk. Whole milk. Liquid lard.

I simmered for about an hour, hating everything small more than usual. Then I decided that I needed something sweet. That's when I found the straw that broke the camel's back. A mini snicker's bar. A. One. Mini. How infuriating is that? Hungry? Grab a Snicker's. But what about when they're bite sized! I felt like I was on Punk'd.

I understand miniature foods and drinks for miniature people, but, let's be real here. Grown ups, and by grown ups I mean me, need real sized food. Not teasers around every corner.

And don't even get me started on shampoo samples.

Don't Judge Me

I'm a judger. Let me clarify, I'm a clothes judger. If you think I looked a little too long at your cardigan/camisole combination- you're probably right. I'm sizing you up. I can't help it. It's a disease.

Working retail brought outfit choices to the forefront of my mind. If I see a belt, I automatically think of what all I can wear it with. This attention to detail hasn't always been there. In fact, it's my best friend,whom I affectionately call my Life Partner, who changed me (read: brainwashed). My favorite fashion blunders are the trainwreck accessorizers of the world. I worked with a girl who couldn't match a scarf to her outfit to save her life. This same girl also had a knack for copying my outfits (and my LP's) and absolutely ruinging them to the point that we would seriously contemplate selling the articles of clothing that comprised the outfit to Plato's closet the next day. But enough about the judging.

You had to know that Granny was going to worm her way into this post, and here she is. Just in time.

You see, this weekend I went home to be in a dear friend's wedding. Since I wouldn't be doing much other than taking pictures at the ceremony and lounging around the house, all I took home with me were flip flops, a few tank tops and some yellow shorts. And my church outfit for Sunday. These clothes served me well. Until yesterday when I headed back to the City.

I'm notorious for losing things. Friends keep my credit card number in their wallets because they know it's inevitible that I'll lose it at some point. They're good like that. Well, true to form, I lost my flip flops. My only shoes that I had brought with me with the exception of a pair of nude heels. Granny was cleaning out my closet with me so I asked her if she'd seen them.

"Yeah, they're right here. Barely look like they've been worn. Hey, I might want to have these!" Granny loves to comandeer my stuff. But, thankfully, flipflops "rub her toes slap raw" so she passed on confiscating them.

I was relieved. My havianas are my babies. I was forced to buy them, but wouldn't take anything for them. Except a new Louis. Or cake. But other than that, nothing.

I let the flipflop scare fade to the back of my mind and proceeded to pack down  my car for the journey home. Once my car was packed to the gills with boxes, topiaries, candle holders, and luggage, I went to say goodbye. It was getting dark out and Granny was going into a fit because she didn't want me driving in the dark in the City. Heaven forbid.

I scoured the house for missing objects and came up empty handed, so I said my goodbyes and went to put on my shoes. The redneck in me doesn't like wearing shoes around the house.

Then I saw them. The flipflops Granny had mentioned. I should have known that her flash-obsessed, glittered out self wouldn't want my simple champagne havianas. The flip flops she was referring to were a pair of hot pink, platform flip flops that belong on a 4' tall grandma. I had no choice. It was the flip flops or the heels. I had to go with the flip flops. It hurt me to put them on. My feet burned where they touched me. But I did it.

Naturally, once on the road I discovered that my tank was running empty. I pulled into the first mom and pop gas station I came across, thankful that I had my debit card on me. The station was packed with pick up trucks and atv's. Not to mention their burly, dirty, cut-off-tee wearing owners. As if the stars weren't already aligned against me, the stupid pump tells me that I must see the attendant. I cringed. At this point, I'm wearing the shorts and tank top, and the sandals. My shorts are beyond inappropriately short, and I'd stripped my bra as soon as I got into the car. I could have died. Wanted to die. Was praying for lightning.

The toothless attendant took a whole minute to scan my card, comment on the pink magnetic strip, ask where I was headed, and insist that I fill up instead of getting just the half a tank I wanted. Clearly she didn't pick up on my urgency to get the heck out of dodge. On my way out, it happened.

I was judged. Publically. By an old grandma sitting on the bench outside, smoking a pack of Virginia Slims.

"Don't she know not to wear short shorts AND a tank top? And those shoes. Trash"

I could have died. Thought my prayers had been answered. Hoped my prayers had been answered.

Nope. Still breathing. I was the unwilling wearer of a middle-school girl's outfit, and I was judged for it. 'Twas a low point in my life.

I blame Granny. And myself. After all, I should have followed my cardinal rule.

If one must dress like trash, at least wear your watch and carry your purse. That way, people will know you must not look that way all the time.

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.