Dec 23 2005
pricelessness
This morning I called my grandmother. When she answered the phone, I mustered my best Southern accent. “Yep. You up?”
She laughed. “Yeah, I’m up. Are you up?”
“Yeah. You always ask me, so I figured I’d return the favor.”
“I heard you ain’t workin’ today.”
“Nope. Got the day off.”
“That’s nice.”
“Yeah. Mom said you might need some help taking down your curtains so you could wash them.”
“Well, I figure I can get them down, but I don’t want to try to put ‘em back up. I don’t need to be climbin’ around on the furniture, because I am 91 years old, after all.”
“I don’t mind helping you.”
“But I figured it could wait until after the new year. That way, we’ll know what’s goin’ on.”
Accustomed to my grandma’s random pronouncements, I don’t ask for clarification. “Okay, then.”
“I put that tablecloth you brought me from Italy on the dining room table. You know, the last time we had Christmas on a Sunday was in 1994? That was eleven years ago.”
“Yeah.”
“I got this other tablecloth that’s for my kitchen table that’s nice. I think I can stand to put it out once every eleven years.”
“Sure.”
“Of course, I probably won’t be around to put it out in eleven more years.”
“You never know. You could live to be a hundred and two.”
“You know, my aunt lived to be a hundred and two. My dad’s sister.”
“Well. Longevity.”
“Yeah, longevity. Just for the women, though. The men don’t seem to do so good. I’m the fourth of eight kids, and the only ones still livin’ are the girls. The boys are all dead.”
“Yeah.”
“You know what they say?”
“Hm?”
“That married folks live longer than single ones. So you know…”
I know what’s coming, but I don’t try to stop her. “You oughta get married. Get ya a husband and kill him off.”
“Um.”
“You know what I meant.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. Alright, then. I’m going to go see what I can get into.”
“Okay. Don’t get into too much trouble, because I’m not going to bail you out of jail.”
“I ain’t fixin’ to go to jail. Might go to the post office.”
“Okay then.”
And then she launched into a long diatribe about Christmas cards and snow shoveling, so I think I’ll just cut it off here. There are few people in the world who can make me laugh as much as my grandmother can. She has an odd sense of humor, and when she’s deliberately funny, you can hear the mischief in her voice. Other times, she’s accidentally funny, and it’s this special combination that makes her such a joy. Being able to hear the rhythm of her speech would add to the effect, I’m sure. I don’t know how well it comes across in writing, because when I write, I can hear her. I don’t know how to explain her accent, since it’s one that doesn’t seem to exist much anymore, but anyway, I thought I’d share.
I’ll be back after Christmas with 2005-in-review-a-palooza (or something). Until then, have a fantastic holiday, or Sunday, or whatever it is to you.
Find yourself a miracle.
[…] – hey! where yo’ man at? – you’re nobody until somebody tells you to drop by the house and holla at him – further adventures in service – truth in advertising – what comes after kung pao chicken, or my predictions for this year – the thing about tampons – pricelessness (one of my very favorite grandma posts) – an open letter to the people who want to see me happily settled down with a nice young man so i can start having babies – the conference call: a rant – did you wash your pants in windex? because i can see myself in them – a letter to a lost friend (even though it always makes me cry) – an open letter to daylight savings time – i am a clumsy oaf – heart attacks: yum! – the one about names […]