Conversations With Grandma

Yesterday, Grandma H picked me up for our weekly getabouting. Inevitably, we both have errands to run before we get to the lunching at IHOP.

After I tell her what errands I need to run, she says, “I need to go to the bank and get a head.”

I pause. Does she mean a bond? Maybe $100 bill with Jefferson’s head on it? “A head of what?”

“A head.” Her tone indicates I’m the idiot here.

“What kind of head do you get at the bank?”

She shakes her head at my stupidity. “A head to put my wig on.”

Ah! “So you need to go to the bank and to the wig shop.”

“Yes.”

“I think you should get a wig cap too to tuck your hair under the wig,” I say.

“That last one was too tight,” she says. “I’ll just get  pantyhose and cut them.”

Dear God, Grandma is the anti-Martha Stewart. “How about we ask the salesgirl for a looser wig cap?”

She sighs. “Okay, but the last one squeezed my head. It hurt.”

I ask, “Why didn’t you say something?”

“Like what?”

“Ow?”

She thinks. “Oh, I guess that would have helped.”

“It definitely would have conveyed that you were in pain.”

******

As we pull out of the cemetery after visiting her mom’s grave, Grandma H waves to the newer section of the graveyard and says, “I wouldn’t want to be buried there.”

I ask, “Where would you like to go?”

She says, “Home.”

“You want to be buried in your house. That’s kinda weird. Do you think Auntie will mind?”

Grandma H bursts out laughing. “No, that’s where I’m headed now. I want to be cremated.”

*****

No matter where we go Grandma H occupies 2-3 parking spots. I’ve never seen anyone park with as much guts as she has.

*****

At IHOP, Grandma H orders a lemonade and puts her straw in the glass. Two minutes later she starts looking around, demanding, “Where’s my straw?”

“It’s in your lemonade.”

She looks perplexed. “Where? I can’t see it.”

I lift it up. “It’s right here. Do you need your glasses?”

“No, it just blends in since the straw is clear and the lemonade is light colored.”

It kinda does. But I can still spot the straw pretty easily. “Grandma you okay?”

“Fine. But this lemonade is on the sweet-side.”

“Do you want me to ask for lemons?”

“You’d think they’d come with it being that they are used to make it.”

*****

After we go to the bank in the mall, I remind Grandma, “I think you should use the other branch. You’re too much of a target walking around the mall.”

“But I’ll have to get friendly with them.”

“How can you get friendly with them when you’re always mean to the tellers?”

She laughs. “I suppose that will be difficult.”

“Better they get used to you as you are.”

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