I Fear It's Genetic

My grandmother has always been a source of entertainment for our family. Not because she’s trying to be, because when she tries it’s lost on everyone. She just has always done things that make you shake your head.

A few examples…

She once told us that she kept a set of keys in her trunk in case she ever locked her keys in her car.

She told us one time that she had hidden a key to her house and wanted to give my dad directions on how to find it. It’s been a long time, so I don’t remember the exact procedure, but this will give you a good idea…take the top of the yard lamp in front of her house (which would require a screw driver). Inside the lamp was a piece of paper that would tell you where to go in the garage. Once you got to this location, there was another note directing you where to go next in the garage. After about 5 stops on her self-made scavenger hunt, you found the key. You could have broken into the house faster and easier.

Once when I was around 14, she was taking me to a doctor’s appointment because both of my parents had to work. Before we got to the doctor’s office, she told me she wanted me to ask the doctor for a pamphlet on PMS (Post Menopause Syndrome). I told her she could ask the doctor for one, but I wasn’t going to do it. She got mad and later called my dad and said I was being disrespectful (but didn’t tell him why). My dad called me and wanted to know what I had done. I told him. He laughed. I was no longer in trouble.

My favorite though came to fruition this weekend. When I was younger, I was going to visit some friends/family with my grandmother. On the way to our destination, she told me that if something happened to her that weekend (no idea why she thought something was going to happen to her…but these conversations were pretty common with her) she wanted to tell me where she kept her money. She told me that in her freezer I would find a bread sack (she always kept bread sacks). In the bread sack, I would find a jar. Inside the jar was another bread sack. Inside that was a brown paper bag. Inside the paper bag was all her money. From that day on, I always told my family that if something happens to grandma, I get the freezer.

Well, over the last year, my grandmother’s health has been failing and the decision was recently made to move her to a nursing home. One of my uncles called my mom and asked if she would mind going over to the house and getting all the food out. My called me right away and said “guess what, I get the freezer!” I jokingly made her promise to split anything she found with me. Yesterday my mom called and was telling me of her experience cleaning out the freezer. She had it full of butter dishes that had frozen food in them. This wasn’t odd, but none of the containers actually had in them what the label said was in them (container marked green beans had strawberries in it). She was tossing some of them out when she came across a container that felt kind of light. She opened it and inside was folded up toilet paper. Inside the toilet paper was $35.

I guess since she’s still living it would be considered stealing instead of an inheritance to keep it, so I guess getting the freezer didn’t pan out as well as I thought. Oh well, $35 wouldn’t even fill up my car these days, so it’s not a big loss. =o)

I can’t wait to see what we find when we clean out the rest of her house.

P.S. For those of you saying "now I know where you get it"...hush!