Thursday, September 28, 2006

HNT #2: My Grandma

I missed HNT_1 last week because of my visit to my grandma, so this week she is the subject. I was poking around in the medicine cabinet that is inside the newly installed half-bath that is um, basically in the kitchen. There was just no good place to put a bathroom on the main floor, and it's getting more difficult for Grandma to go up and down the stairs. Incidentally, the medicine cabinet is the same as was always there. Grandpa installed a second sink on the other side of the kitchen sink, and above that sink there has always been this medicine cabinet with a deep storage closet behind it. Grandma would climb up on the sink to get at the stuff in there, such as booze or flower vases. The contractors removed the sink, put in a toilet, a wall behind the kitchen sink, and a plastic accordion-fold door with magnet latch. I found this ancient glass jar of Vaseline in the medicine cabinet, and thought it would be goofy to take a photo of Grandma with her antique Vaseline. She blithely contined to read her paper.


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I can't say that I have any bad memories associated with my grandparents. My sweetie Steve sometimes remarks I always seem to have bad stories to tell about my childhood. Not when it comes to my grandparents. My mother's husband once complained that we kids always escaped to the grandparents. Wait, stop. I wasn't going to share a negative story. (Two just reared their ugly heads.)

Of course there is the embarrassing story where I was 3 or 4 years old and there was some big family gathering. My grandpa got a pool table for his basement, and all the menfolk were downstairs in the basement, us kids buzzing around them and playing at bowling with the plastic bowling ball and pins. Those red and white chairs may very well have been lined up, and people helped themselves to Red White and Blue or Pabst Blue Ribbon in the fridge behind the bar. I loved the hand-cranked foghorn AhOOOOGAAHH. At some point one of the dads would have to tell us to knock it off. (You think kid's toys are noisy. Hah. ...Grandma sold that, sadly.) So, the embarrassing moment.

An odd thing about this house, no bathroom on the first floor til recently. There is a closet with a toilet in the basement, and a full bath on the second floor. Hmmm. Wonder where the outhouse was back when the place was built in the 1800s. I found out recently that when they moved in, my grandpa put that basement toilet in and fashioned the closet. I latched myself in to pee, and no sooner than I did, some uncle or second cousin knocked on the door and said he had to go. I thought it'd be funny to make him wait, so I stood up on the toilet and giggled while he said, "Come on out, Heidi." I was too little to understand that he was drinking and he really really had to pee. Giggling away, I peed my pants. I guess it hadn't been that long since I'd learned how to use the toilet, but I didn't remember that. Subdued, I climbed off the toilet seat lid, unlatched the door, and meekly snuck away. Upstairs in the kitchen all the women were doing womanly things like packing up or putting out food, washing, drying dishes, etc. I soon realized no one was noticing I peed my pants. After a bit it dried and I thought that was the end, but the next morning I woke up with a horrible rash. Mom asked what happened, and embarrassed again I told her about playing the joke and peeing my pants. She told me I should've said something, she could have washed me off! I was surprised that her reaction didn't match up with my embarrassment. She just considered it an accident, while I thought I'd been an idiot.