All that's Missing is Bing Crosby Tap Dancing with Danny Fucking-Kaye

I’ve spoken before about my extended family and their quirks. My Grampy and Grandma are basically the center of most things. Grampy has been a bit under the weather; as I mentioned before he has a pacemaker. He has been in the hospital for the past five days because his ticker wasn’t quite working right. He’s feeling much better now (he had a very rough night on Thursday) and should be coming home later this week.

Grampy is a very active man; he doesn’t sit still for long. He has a garden, a barn and he loves to tinker. Being cooped up in a hospital is, needless to say, not his cup of tea. Yesterday, Bread, Bird and I headed out for a visit. Coincidentally, my brother (Uncle H), my Grandma (she and Grampy have been married for 55 years) and my mom were also there.

I don’t know if I can do this scene justice but I’m going to try. We walk in. Grampy is sharing a room with some other guy. The room is divided by a curtain. Oh! How private and lovely! Not really. Immediately, Bird runs for the bed, climbs up and starts jumping. Boing! Boing! Boing! The man, sharing the room, behind the curtain, is coughing. I mean, really coughing, as in, don’t look under the curtain because I’m about 95 percent certain there’s a lung on the floor. Cough! Gurgle! Cough! Boing! Boing! Boing! Grandma starts asking Grampy if he needs his oxygen. Grampy says not now. Grandma keeps pushing until Grampy tells her, “I don’t want to be too reliant on that.” Yeah, oxygen? Totally overrated. Boing! Boing! Boing! Cough! Gurgle! Cough!

Meanwhile, Bread, my mom, and Uncle H are holding a conversation over Bird and her trampoline. My mom turns to my Grandma to ask her about the local fireworks, which are scheduled for this Friday. She wants to know if they’re really going to happen. My Grandma sort of rudely shouts at her that, “Yes, they’re happening and I don’t really want people to come over and I don’t want to cook hotdogs.” WTF? Boing! Boing! Boing! Cough! Gurgle! Cough!

Uncle H then says, “I think I have hemorrhoids.” Boing! Boing! Boing! Grandma “whispers” in a voice that could wake Elvis,”What happened to?" (jerks thumb over shoulder at empty bed in the room across the hall). “Did he die?” Grampy, without skipping a beat replies, “I didn’t know it wasn’t my turn to watch him.” While the rest of us, chastise Grandma for being so blunt and loud (she always is), she then feels the need to explain that, “he was old, I mean really old.” Boing! Boing! Boing!

To change the subject, I tell Grampy that he looks a lot better today. He decides to tell us that he feels much better than he did on Thursday. His words exactly, “When they first sent me here, I was afraid I was going to die. Then, that first night, I was afraid I wasn’t!” while laughing. Of course, the rest of us are laughing. Jokes about death are always humorous! Boing! Boing! Boing! Cough! Gurgle! Cough!

At this point, I kind of realize how loud we are. There are seven of us squeezed into a very tiny, curtained area. Bird has moved on to trying to “tickle” the baseball players on the world’s smallest television. Grandma starts in with the oxygen again. Grampy is rolling his eyes. The man next store has proclaimed, to whoever is visiting him, “The doctor says if I lose some weight and quit the booze, I’ll be doing good. Haaaaaggggkkkk.” Um, I’m not exactly a doctor, but, based on your size (he was massive) and that cough, I think you may need to lose more than a few pounds (perhaps a person or two) and perhaps see about getting a lung transplant. I’m just saying. Bird resumes jumping. Boing! Boing! Boing!

A nurse stops to look in our room. I take that as a hint. Okay, ‘tis time to depart. We are saying our good-byes. Grampy asks Bread if he’s still working a lot of hours. Grampy, obviously now retired, was in the same career field as Bread, so he has a vested interest in Bread and his workload. Bread tells him that he is still working lots of hours. Grampy, with a twinkle in his eye, replies, “Good. And, keep paying that Social Security!”

We left, and I suppose, I didn’t think much of this visit. It’s normal for me. But, then Bread and I were replaying the events of the afternoon and we laughed so hard we cried. Reliant on oxygen! Yelling about fireworks! ‘Rhoids! Coughing! Jumping! It was, in actuality, a scene straight out of a Griswold movie. My family is the Griswold’s! All we need is an RV, with an over-filled shitter, and an asshole in a bathrobe to empty it! OMG! Next time I’ll film!