She's nothing if not the voice of social consciousness

Grandma Looney finds herself to be something of a liberal... in her own way...

On homosexuality: Grandma Looney found herself chatting with the father of a girl who went to high school with Grandma Looney's kids. The conversation turned to how the kids are doing... Well, turns out, one of this guy's daughters turned out to be gay ("you know, a lesbian") and the father had unfortunately gotten some negative comments from friends over the years.  Grandma Looney found this outrageous! After all, as she told him (and me): "I can't imagine why. Last time I saw her, she looked much better than she ever did in high school. Had her hair all cut and done nice. It was kind of stringy straight in high school. She looks good now."

This is akin to her friend at work who is black. Now, this woman, presumably because she is a friend, can be referred to as black... said out loud... as opposed to someone she doesn't know, who is [mouth the word "black"... don't say it out loud]. Plus, this woman at work, "she's real pretty..."

Bottom line: As long as you look good doing it....

Oh, let's not forget the Orient-... I mean... Asians.  After all, "My friend's daughter works for the Justice Department and she says you can't say 'Oriental' anymore..."

And her friend's daughter is cute, so she must know what she's talking about...

Re: A magic show her friend bought her tickets to

"You know how I hate illusions"

Pottymouth

Today Grandma Looney dropped the F-bomb and called her son an A-hole within the first 20 minutes of our family gathering.

Grandma Looney's casserole dish

In my last blog post, you learned that Grandma Looney has a messy house. Last time it started a fire. I thought maybe she had learned her lesson. Silly, me. I stopped by this weekend and found this…

...Empty toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls, of course! And all strategically placed nicely in a casserole dish in the kitchen. I'm not sure why she's keeping them OR why they are being kept in a casserole dish, but when I find out, I'll let you know. I will say this -- I wouldn't be surprised if someway, somehow, those toilet paper holders made their way into the oven...

Fire in the Hole!

It all started with one little question from Grandma Looney: “Have you ever used your self-cleaning oven? ”

This developed into an entire story typical of Grandma Looney revolving around 2 themes – (1) her house is a mess and (2) her roundabout way of thinking.

Why would she need to clean the oven, all of a sudden (obviously never having done it before)?

“I was heating up some garlic bread…”

Ohhhh… and it must have burned.

“No.  The chex mix did. Well, and the plastic bowl.”

Wait. I thought it was garlic bread.

This is when Grandma Looney starts rolling her eyes, amazed that I can’t follow along. But why was she cooking bread and chex mix in a plastic bowl in the oven? Did she not know you can’t use plastic in the oven?

“Well, of course I didn’t do that!”

Here’s what happened. Grandma Looney put Chex Mix in a plastic bowl. Then, she cooked some garlic bread. She did not eat all of either one. At some point, Grandma Looney needed the counter space her garlic bread and Chex Mix were taking up (here’s theme number 1… her counters look like a scene from Hoarders), so she stored them in the oven (theme number 2 – this is the last place anyone else in our family would store food. How about the refrigerator?). Later, she thought she would heat up the garlic bread but forgot about the Chex Mix. She turned on the oven and BOOM! Fire.

But we never would have found that out if she didn’t ask that one simple question that kept up asking WHY she needed to clean her oven so badly… Have you ever used your self-cleaning oven?

Good news, though. The smoke detector alerted her before the fire spread… Luckily, the week prior, Grandma Looney had just called the city fire department – 3 firemen and a full fire engine – to her house to change the batteries on her smoke detector.

Internet Issues

Grandma Looney has called twice this week for me to come fix her "broken" internet. Same problem both times....

...She has a pop-up.

"it's OK, because I saw the same one on QVC"

So after the last post about the strange gifts Grandma Looney gives, you may wonder where she shops. The local drug store, of course! It’s her #1 place to shop… for anything. No, it’s not a chain convenience store with a pharmacy; it’s actually a local mom-and-pop drug store. You didn’t think those existed anymore did you? I can only assume that this is one of the last few left, and that it is open solely because of the amount of shopping Grandma Looney does there.

The strange things this drug store must encounter with her are unimaginable. Luckily for you, though, having spent a lot of time with my grandmother when I was younger, I KNOW some of the strange things the drug store HAS encountered. Once, she  "persuaded"  the pharmacist to stay open late so she could pick up her prescription ... persuaded with a bottle of gin, that is.

This poor pharmacist.  He really should have just gone to medical school, for the amount of phone calls for diagnoses and medical information Grandma Looney makes.  Never mind calling or visiting the doctor first -- just call the drug store and tell them your symptoms. They always seem to know that is "going around." 
But pharmaceuticals and gifts are not the only goodies in the local drug store.  Grandma Looney is forever frequenting the local drug store to cash checks. I’m not talking about pay checks she needs cashed in a sketchy location. No, it’s not because she doesn’t have a bank account. It’s because Grandma Looney just doesn’t have (or at least doesn't know how to use) an ATM card. Why? If you find out, let me know. So regularly (I would estimate a few times a week) she writes herself a check made out to Cash and goes to the drug store to cash it. 

So, while she is in the drug store doing her banking, Grandma Looney checks out the knickknacks and tchotchkes, at which time the gift suggestions run rampant through her mind. I’m sure the drug store has some interesting things, like I would imagine a Hallmark would, but it would probably be the last place I’d go shopping for gifts for someone’s birthday. She once gave my stepdad a cat figurine and told us, “I found this at the drug store, but it’s ok because I saw the same one on QVC.” Now, there are so many things wrong with that statement – why would a cat figurine make a good present? Why buy one at the drug store? Why would it make it ok because it was on QVC?

By the way, the QVC obsession is a whole other story…