SamHenry Cleans Up Nicely
Three things a young person does not want to hear:
1. Grandma is coming to live with us.
2. Someone else’s grandma is coming to live with us (we need the money)
3. You will be going to live with someone else’s grandma.
This evening, I went grocery shopping with a young man from Korea who rents a room in my home. My other renter is a young man from Ghana. Both thought when they first arrived life with a woman who could have been their grandmother would be simple: hello and goodbye. Surprise. They are growing sad about leaving. So am I. I don’t need the two picky females in my life who will be replacing them this fall.
Look at me. Do I look like the vamp of Savannah or Scheherazade? Yet Daniel and Joseph seem very happy here now. I don’t know what it is – perhaps it is that they like the adventure of not knowing what will come out of my mouth next? I have told them senility is a myth. Mumbling confused people with gray hair are really CIA operatives and listening posts. I am not one of the listening posts because I like to talk. I am a courier. I carry important messages back and forth between my doctor and the pharmacist.
When they are bugging me more than I am bugging them, I know just enough about what is going on in the world today to scare them into submission. For example, at the grocery store, Daniel was running behind me with his cart repeating “have you got everything you need now”? He was just like a 3 year old. I was immovable. I had to stop to read labels or muse about mousse.
Finally I turned to him and said: “Daniel, a new world order is coming – the internet is buzzing with talk
of it. And in the new world order, I’m quite certain that, because there will be an over supply of old people, every young person will be assigned an old person. You may have to take that old one home and care for it. Daniel, you don’t fully realize it but you are in training right at the moment. If you want to graduate with honors, you will keep back a cart’s length behind me and stop asking me the same question.
In going on the offensive like that I was hedging my bets. Daniel was getting ingredients to cook me a delicious Korean meal. You see, I’m helpless in the kitchen. I officially closed mine down years ago and now only open it up on special occasions – when students cook! They are excited to try out their new pots and pans in a kitchen that isn’t their mothers’.
For my part, I have been gastronomically generous to Daniel. I have introduced him to asparagus and canoli and in that order. He knows I am a culture bearer – I’ve explained this aspect of the role of the aged in America. Because he is in our country to learn, he is grateful. Did I say he can’t drive?
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©On My Watch…the writings of SamHenry. Registration Pending.
blackwatertown
July 27, 2010
Ah – so that’s what you are. One of those sleeper agents. That’s why you closed down your kitchen, so as to stop startling people with your alarming knife skills at the chopping board. Just like Geena Davis in that film with Samuel L Jackson – what was it? The Long Goodbye? No. The Long Good Friday? Definitely no. The Long Kiss Goodnight? Maybe.
samhenry
July 27, 2010
The Long Kiss Goodnight. When you get older kisses get shorter. There’s some bodily function or other that will cease to function so you do everything in moderation except yell like hell when you’re deaf and think no one can hear you. I will have to rent this flick.
DarcKnyt
July 27, 2010
Oh, those sleeper cell agents, right in our midst. I especially enjoy the ones covered in ragamuffin clothing with wild eyes, dirt-smudged hands and faces, shoes battered to slabs of fabric, untamed manes teeming with hopping insects, and teeth either missing or a mysterious green-gray color. Very, very deep undercover.
I think I’m being recruited for those ranks now. Time will show, I suppose.
samhenry
July 27, 2010
You should have seen the first photo of me I chose for the piece. Very close to what you like (loved the description – I will have to cop it sometime with all due credit of course). I looked like a housekeeper in a prison somewhere. And that’s no LOL!
I’m glad you liked this one DK. I value your comments.
DarcsFalcon
July 29, 2010
Look at you! I can so see you on a yacht, sailing around Martha’s Vineyard, sipping a pale blush wine.
That’s a great shot of you.
samhenry
July 29, 2010
DF – I am so happy I look good. I wasn’t sure. I’m glad I still look as if you could take me anywhere – free!