I'm blessed to have two living grandmothers and they are as different as night and day. I've nicknamed them Spike for my paternal grandmother and Fluffy for my maternal. Yet as different as they are, they have both recently tortured me in similar ways.
I started feeling under the weather last Tuesday. By the next day I was really feeling bad but I'd promised Fluffy that I'd take her to the bank. So I didn't tell her I was ill, figuring it would be a quick jaunt, down the street and back. I actually live in a little apartment beside Fluffy's house so this wasn't a big deal for me.
However, once in the car she starts to list off more errands she'd like to do. "Oh, I need to go to Walgreens," she says. And then it's PetCo for cat food, then Safeway for groceries. By the time she's got all her groceries in the wagon at Safeway, I'm about ready to keel over and she hasn't noticed my distress at all. This from the same woman who moans and sighs all day and gets upset if you don't ask after her health...because you know, she may be dying. Finally, she looks at me and asks if I'm okay.
"No," I say. "I'm not, I'm feeling sick, are you about done?"
Well that got us out of there finally and I went home and sank happily into my bed, all set to rest while she looked after my cats, Sebastian and Dominic, for me. No more than ten minutes after I snuggled down with a heating pad, she comes knocking on my door. I climb down out of bed(my bed is lifted quite high) and open the door to find a very discombobulated Fluffy.
"Sebastian pushed his way out of the screen door," she says. "Then he went around the fence."
I throw on my clothes with a heavy grown and pad out to our neighbor's house, where Fluffy said Sebastian made his escape to. After getting permission to scour their property, I plod down their extreme hill and into their back yard where I find Sebastian contentedly eating grass under their car. He comes out immediately, having no idea that he's done wrong, and I pick him up and carry him back up the hill.
Having failed at cat sitting, I no longer trust Fluffy to watch my babies so I take both boys back into my house and close the door on the world. The next day I discover the amazing magic of Emergen C and start feeling much better but I find that I now have insomnia and am unable to fall asleep until 7am, a situation that would have been fine if the next day didn't happen to be my niece's birthday party which started at noon.
Grandma Spike was kind enough to wake me up with a phone call at 11am and come and pick me up for the party. On the way there she regaled me with stories of people I don't know and frankly, at that moment, didn't care about, including one about her friend Edith who she'd been helping move to the mainland. Edith has a cat named Charlie who Spike felt strongly about introducing me to. Evidently I'm the cat expert in the family and all cats must be introduced to me for inspection.
I tried to tell her about my recent success on Amazon, how well my book was selling and that I'd actually peaked at an author ranking of 18,ooo(to give you an idea of how great this is, I started out in the 500,000 zone). She nodded and then started in about Edith's furniture. Furniture! Fine, whatever. I was too tired to be upset.
We go to the party, which is a pool party no less, and sit the required amount of time eating pizza and watching children spit all over the cake while trying to blow the candles out. Then we finally head home and we are about to take the exit to take us back to my house when she suddenly veers off into another direction declaring that we must go to Edith's house so I can meet her cat!
"Grandma," I say in a tired voice(I've already told her I've only had four hours of sleep and have been sick so she doesn't have the excuse that Fluffy did of not knowing)"I don't want to meet the cat."
"It'll just take a moment," she insists and as she's driving, I can hardly do anything else about it.
We get to this ghetto apartment building and pull up the one lane that goes practically vertical, so we can enter the parking structure, only to find that someone else has parked in Edith's spot.
"Oh well," I declare, "let's just go home."
"No, I'll just park on the street," she says and point out a spot across the four lane street from us.
I have to add at this point that Spike is the worst sort of elderly driver. She's the woman who causes accidents and then just drives on unknowingly. Every time I enter her car I wonder if I'll live to see a new day. Half the time she's driving, she's focused on me instead of the road, gesturing wildly with her hand as her other hand(holding the wheel) follows along and swerves us about willy nilly, forcing other people to careen out of our way. Now this woman has decided to cross four lanes of traffic to parallel park in a small space just so I can meet a cat.
We barely make it across and pull up to the spot, where she comes to a stop without putting on her turning signal to give the driver behind us any idea of what the hell we are doing. She looks at the spot and declares that she can't fit, then takes off, almost ramming the poor guy who has now gone around us. Once again she swerves across the street and pulls up in front of the building, parking not only in front of a fire hydrant but an inch away from a crosswalk.
"Grandma, you can't park here," I declare.
"I won't be long," she says and marches up to the building, using the dangerous single lane car entrance instead of the stairs because her hip hurts. I sigh and follow her up to this lady's smelly apartment to meet a sweet but dirty feline who looks at me with eyes clearly pleading for help.
I scratch his face and shake my head. Sorry, Charlie, you're stuck with the old broad. Then, while I'm distracted by the cat, Spike invites Edith along to ride with us back to my house. I follow unwillingly back to the car, thinking I'll get into the back seat and go to sleep. But no, Spike comes up and whispers to me to put Edith in the back, she doesn't want her riding up front with her. What the hell? Why invite the woman along if you don't want to talk to her.
Then we start heading back and Edith starts shooting questions at me from the back seat... starting with what do I think of her cat. WTF is up with this damn cat? I tried to answer her but it turns out that Edith is hard of hearing so she just keeps asking me the same question until Spike tells me I have to yell at her. So now I'm exhausted, on the verge of a relapse, shouting at an old woman in the back of a car as we speed down the highway, swerving into other lanes each time Spike gestures too effusively.
Miracle of miracles, I make it home in one piece but now Spike wants to bring her friend out to meet Fluffy and show her my cats! No, I was done. I told them my cats are shy around strangers and left them to their old lady hugs as I went for another glass of Emergen C and then headed to bed.
There's nothing like the Hell that family can put you through.