Thank God For Grandparents

I absolutely LOVE my family. They not only give me undeserving love but constant entertainment and since I love to laugh, their craziness makes me love them even more!

Usually the lead actors in the on-going comedy I call, “My Life” are Hubbit, Flea and Bug. However, my extended family does provide comedy relief almost every time I see them, as well. See Thanksgiving Blog for proof.

This week I was blessed with a visit from my grandparents, Nona and Pa.(It’s awesome I don’t have to make up blog code names for them, as they’ve been publicly using their own special code names for years!)

A visit from Nona and Pa is always a good visit, as they are sweet, chatty and most of the time, absolutely hilarious. Thank God for grandparents!

Of course, a visit is not nearly as entertaining as taking a road trip with them, where you can witness my 81-year-old grandfather punching the CRAP out of my grandmother’s arm and shouting “PUNCH BUGGY” every time he sees a VW Bug, followed by the sounds of my saintly Baptist grandmother responding with, “Dam*it! I’m going to whip Bug’s little as* for teaching you that game!” and Bug giggling uncontrollably from the back seat at the entire interaction.

Since my grandfather is in charge of providing transportation for the Senior Church Trips every month, I’m wondering if he refrains from playing Punch Buggy while plays chauffeur to those he lovingly calls “the old people” in the church van. If he doesn’t, I’m sure no one's fighting over Shot-Gun!

Anyhow…as expected, their visit this week was not a disappointment.

While we had a great time catching up on lives of extended relatives and various things we’d all eaten throughout the week, the best part was when Pa and I were discussing television.

Our convo went a little like this:

Me: I’m not sure the boys should be allowed to watch wrestling anymore. They’re driving me nuts trying out the moves they see on WWE.
Pa: I use to watch wrestling but now it makes me nervous, so I don’t anymore.
Me: It just puts me straight to sleep. (Side note: Maybe my cure for insomnia?! ) But, when I do watch TV I just want to watch something uplifting, like a comedy or a love story. Or, even better…a romantic comedy!
Pa: (turns to my grandmother) See? Whit likes love stories too! I’m not the only one! (turns back to me) I watch love stories every day on TV.

(grandmother rolls her eyes)

Me: (confused) Pa, what types of love stories are you watching every day?
Pa: Jerry Springer.

Seriously?!

Pa: He comes on every day! You should see some of those love stories on there. Yesterday there was this woman who didn’t know who the daddy was to her baby and they did all these tests and it turned out the father-in-law was the daddy! (He was being totally serious and was totally shocked.)
Me: (trying my darnest to stiffle my giggling)
Pa: Ya know, I’ll tell you one thing though. I would hate to be those Security Guards on those shows. Those women on there will scratch and bite them, trying to claw at each other! They are crazy.

Good Lord.

I suppose if one was looking for the most dysfunctional-dramatic-baby’s-daddy-questioning love story in history, Jerry Springer would certainly be a great place to start their search. Not quite the type of Nicholas Sparks love story I had in mind, but they do say men and women view romance differently, so maybe that’s where I’d gone wrong in that conversation!

Of course, this was not quite as funny as a few visits back where my grandmother told us about a few movies she’d picked up for my kids at a Church Sale.

First, let me start by saying…Church Sales are NO JOKE. They are much like garage sales, only are not for amateurs. They are for professional garage salers looking for loads of low cost items, all in one location. In fact, they’re quite a garage saler’s dream. You only have to park in one spot and get to view stuff from hundreds of people. Forget about driving all over town to look at single garage sales from street to street. These are the cream of the crop!

My grandmother has a self-admitted Church Sale addiction and honestly, I can easily see myself following in her footsteps as I get older. On beautiful Saturday mornings I have certainly been known to wake the kids up at 7am, throw on a hat, jump in Hubbit’s big truck (SO necessary for hauling my “finds”) and hit the streets in search of the next best garage sale find. In fact, most of the time I make sure I’ve hit the ATM the night before, to ensure I have cash on hand and no time is wasted. The kids once thought this was fun but are more annoyed by it than amused, these days.

The problem is, most often I buy stuff I-absolutely-without-a-doubt-don’t-need-and-can’t-even-find-a-place-for-when-I-get-home. Fail.

My grandmother has found a way around this dilemma, however. She buys the stuff she absolutely-without-a-doubt-doesn’t-need-and-can’t-even-find-a-place-for-when-she-gets-home and then gives it to me, the kids, my mother or my aunt. So, she gets to fulfill her Church Sale addiction and not become a hoarder.

I envy her…she’s a PRO. Not to mention, I do not complain when she finds me brand-new-with-tags Ann Taylor dresses for 50 cents!

Anyhow, she cracked me up a few weeks ago when she was telling me about a few movies she’d picked up for Flea and Bug.

Nona: I found a few movies at the Church Sale this weekend for the boys.
Me: Thanks! They will love them. Which ones are they?
Nona: Dirty Old Men and Dirtier Old Men.

Oh. Em. Gee.

I have yet to get the movies from her, but I am praying she meant “Grumpy Old Men” and “Grumpier Old Men” instead, because I’m thinking we might need to cut her off from her Church Sales if the ones she’s going to sell pornographic material!

And to that, I'll say again...Thank God for grandparents!

Whitney

“Surely, two of the most satisfying experiences in life must be those of being a grandchild or a grandparent.” (Donald A. Norberg)