The year is 1993 and the movie is
Grumpy Old Men, which was followed in 1995 by
Grumpier Old Men. My dad loved these movies! I can take it or leave them, but my dad loved them! My dad was known as grumpy, but it was more of an act than anything sincere. For example, we would ask for him to take us to the store and he would grumpily say, "It's too far!" We would whine and then move on about our business. A few minutes later, usually 10-15, he would come in and say, "Let's go!" This was common, he tried to be mean, but usually he would give in or just be teasing. In fact, it sort of ran in his family...his older brother was grumpier than my dad. One time we went to visit him, this was just a couple of years ago...he was in the kitchen being grumpy, I told him that he was just like my dad...he smiled!!! From then on, whenever we went over, he would smile. Ok, so back to topic....
This post is about the flipside of that,
Grump Old Women! In looking for any info to share on this topic, I found that there is a TV series in the UK by that name. This made me laugh...but, today, I am going to talk about one Grumpy Old Woman in my life, my MOM! Ok, so I don't believe she is old because I believe that age is a state of mind! But, my mom just turned 60 and she thinks she is old! But I know a lot of people that would agree with me that she is GRUMPY!
We will be walking in the store, Walmart for example. Ok, most people have been in Walmart or most any grocery type store. There is one main aisle that people walk up and down to get to the regular aisles where the groceries are, right? Ok, so we are walking up and down this main aisle and someone comes out of an aisle too fast or isn't watching for anyone in the main aisle. Mom gets mad and says that she "should have the right of away". Same trip at the store, we are in a regular aisle and come out, mom in front and not watching or caring and someone in the main aisle is in her way and she still says, "I should have the right of way." I will sometimes look at the person in an apologetic way as we move along. I'm sorry, but I don't see how it can work that way. Both directions can't have the right of way for her? This is probably the most common example of her grumpiness.
So a week ago Sunday, we are having a game night of sorts, one of many, in fact, at our house. There are 5 of us playing, myself, Steve, my mom and two of my cousins. As we are getting started, I mention that the ASL class would be starting the following Saturday. My mom turns to my cousins, both teenage boys, and tells them "sign language would be a really good thing for them to learn." The topic goes by the wayside as we get into playing games.
We start by playing The Game of Life, and for whatever reason, my one cousin owes Steve $5000, but he only has the $10000 bill. So, he goes to hand it to Steve and then pulls it back. They are playing around and my other cousin and I are laughing about it. It is all in good fun! The cousin wants Steve to pick up the change and they can exchange it at the same time. Steve refuses, and I point out that that isn't how it works in real life, you pay your part and then get the change, right? Well, when the time comes that Steve gets a grip of the bill, it rips. Ok, now, this game belongs to me & steve, not my mom, who doesn't like the game in the first place. I don't care one iota that this bill is torn, it only shows the game has been played and enjoyed, imo! I would have probably just thrown the little torn off piece away. In fact, the cousins, Steve and myself kind of laugh about it! But, not my mom, NNNNOOOOOO, ...She gets mad, really mad! She makes the other cousin get the scotch tape. She says, "All Steve had to do was pick up the $5000", I come back by saying, "All had to do was give Steve the money!" She yells at me, I get mad...and would normally start crying because I'm mad...she knows this and so I say, loudly, "And I'm not going to cry!!!"
That did it, the rest of the night; we spent basically walking on eggshells. This is nothing new for me as I do this a lot. It isn't an easy thing to live in the same house as your mom, at least not for us! We finish that game of Life and then move on to Payday. We all pretty much expected mom to go to bed, but she didn't, she stays up and plays Payday, too. In this game, there is a lottery, where each player that chooses to play chooses a number 1-6. The player landing on the lottery then rolls the die and whosever number comes up first wins the lottery. This same cousin that was involved in the tearing of the $10000 bill, which we now call bill, calls out the number 3. Steve can't hear well and even less this night because he has been having some issues with his ears. So, we were trying to hold up fingers to show him what numbers we were calling out. Well, some of us were. This cousin says 3 but uses the sign for 6
(which is the same as the sign for the letter W) and is used by much of the world’s population to say 3 and I know this.
This is really the sign for 3. I took that moment to tell him the difference between the sign for 3 and the sign for 6. Mom didn't seem to like this lesson and told this cousin that it didn't matter for "people like them." Now, she didn't elaborate, so I am not positive what exactly "people like them" meant. Now, mostly because of the grumpiness earlier in the night, my brain was not exactly following the process of all conversation that night.
Later that night, as my non-stop brain was going over the events of the night, I realized that at the beginning of the night, my mom was telling the cousins that learning sign language would be a good thing, but late in the night she tells him that it doesn't matter for "people like them." Hmm....WHAT?????
So, a couple of nights ago, one of these same cousins was over playing games again. We were playing games again and for some reason I mentioned something about sign language and/or the class. Mom told cousin that it would be a good thing for him to learn. He and I glanced at each other and after a moment kind of laughed a little. She didn't catch on that we were laughing at her and her constant changing mind.
Now, call me crazy (I didn't marry into the BATTY family for nothing, you know!), but AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I guess I didn't know what crazy was until the last 4 years and I'm certain it is only going to get worse as time continues on...so I decided to let out a little of this and do a post called "Grumpy old WOMEN". This woman isn't old and the thought of just how grumpy she will be when she does get old scares the living daylights outta me............good thing I love her so much, huh?!
