Father's Day recap

Yesterday my parents and I brought cold cuts and sandwich fixin's over to my grandparents' house for a nice, quiet Father's Day lunch. Grampy was in good spirits, despite the fact that he's really starting to lose his memory and it's pissing the hell out of him, and discussed golf and real estate with my father. It was Grammy, however, who stole the show. Highlights included:

• When I asked her what she wanted to drink - water, juice, milk - and she responded by slamming her hand on the table and yelling, "Water, straight up!"
• When she asked me if I needed an apron as we were laying the deli meets out on a plate.
• When she asked me, "Have you seen the rest of the house?" I just gave her a big hug and told her I'd been coming there for almost 28 years and that, yes, I had seen the rest of the house. We both had a good laugh.

Then towards the end of the visit my grandmother walked me into the sunroom so we could look at the neighbor's house as she told me stories:

Mrs. Z was a very nice woman. (Later in life, Mrs. Z would ask my grandmother to be her "sister," since she had lost her real sister and Grammy had lost her brother. Grammy was very honored and accepted, of course.) But that Mr. Z! Every morning Bob (my grandfather) would walk out and say, "good morning, sir," and that man would just turn up his nose. That man was a big S-H-I-T!

This floored me. I have never, in my whole life, heard Grammy swear.

"Helen!" I exclaimed. "Watch your language!"

"I know," she said, "that's why I spelled it!"

In the car I retold the story to my parents. "Did they ever swear in front of you growing up?" I asked me dad. "No," he said, "and the only time I've ever heard my mother swear is when she talks about that guy."

And that was the afternoon. So a Happy (belated) Father's Day to all the dads out there, and to you, Mr. Z. You've been dead a long time, but you clearly made quite an impression on my grammy, and your memory lives on in her.