Old People are Cool

[Post 26]

Ok, so by "Old People are Cool" I mean my Grandparents are cool and that I can't wait to be old and just like them (making the assumption that I get married and have kids and grandkids - hey, it could happen.) Today I got a good reminder of just how cool they are.

So, My 14 year old brother and I go down to our grandparents' house today for various reasons and while we're there Grandma offers us a slice of her special chocolate cake fresh out of the oven. Now, I'm not usually a fan of chocolate cake, but I am a fan of Grandma's, so I'm pretty excited. We take a plate to grandpa first, then my brother runs over with his plate and I amble over with mine. By the time I get my dish back to the table my brother's large piece is a little more than half gone (the boy is like a piranha sometimes). Grandma notices and bellows, "Dear Boy! You ATE IT TOO FAST! NOW COOL-IT! "

(My grandmother is one of the only people that I know that can make me run out of ways to increase the emphasis in sentence; makes me wish that I could add a crescendo symbol from f to ff.)

Grandpa looks over at Bro.'s plate and says slowly in his deep rumbling voice, "Well… maybe he'll need another one." The boy looks up happily and says cheerfully. "Yes. Maybe I'll need another one."

"NO!" Grandma pronounces as she stomps one foot. "I have to take this cake to my relatives in Bluebell," she finishes much more softly but with an air of annoyance. We all look at her quizzically. She answers, "It's for a Christmas party."

"A Christmas party?" I ask (note that I'm writing this in June).

"Yes, a Christmas Party. My brother is having a June Christmas party."

"??" say the eyes and slightly tilted heads of my brother and I.

"It's so they can get in two," chuckles Grandpa holding up the peace sign.

"Is this a yearly thing?" I ask.

"I don't know, but I think so," says Grandpa.

"Do they put up a tree?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," says Grandma, inflicting the consonant with the vigor of a first grade teacher (this isn't suprising because she was a first grade teacher.) "The oven was hot, and I just had to think of an excuse to go down and spy on their party, so I made this cake." We all chuckle as Grandma turns and leaves the room to finish getting ready for Christmas in June.

After a moment my brother gets up and steps slyly over to the cake, making small movements so as to emphasize his "sneakiness." "Better leave it alone," says I, "that's Grandma's ticket to the party."

Grandpa's eyes sparkle as he leans over and says in a conspiring tone, "Perhaps if we cut a long thin slice off the end it won't be noticed." As he finishes speaking he's already standing up and shuffling over to the cake pan. In the time it would take to say "slick" he's already trimmed off the most exact cake sliver you've ever seen, and divided it into two long pieces and one short one. "I'm going to need somewhere to put these," he mutters with a shifty wide-eyed look that says – "hurry, or I'm going to be in trouble."

Plop, plop, plop. Two long pieces on the grandkids' plates, and one short one on Grandpa's plate. Grandpa shuffles back to the table and everybody sits down and takes a bite. Enter Grandma, bright as the sunshine. "Well, I s'pose I'd better be off."

"We'd better be off too," I say. "We've got stuff to do at the house." I reach over and give my smiling angel Grandma a hug. "Thanks for the cake." In the same motion I look over her shoulder squarely at my grandpa (who happens to be grinning from ear to ear and silently laughing so that his belly is bouncing up and down). "Yes," I say, "thank you for the cake."