Unopened.

How to belittle a grandparent to grandchild relationship.

When telling these stories in person, some people seem shocked and appalled at the way I talk about my grandparents. I often get remarks like "you're horrible" and "oh my god, you're horrible."
I ask you this question though: have you roomed with your grandparents? When you live with your grandparents in college, all of the happiness you saw in them as a child slowly evolves into something less magical.
Think of it this way. All of the time between getting birthday money from them and going over for Thanksgiving Dinner is jam packed with normal conversation, Fox News, bickering over useless information, Fox News, fetching expired food from the freezer, and Fox News. It's not that my relationship with my grandma has gone sour, but rather, become something more real. Living there gave me (and my brother and cousin) something like bragging rights. That's not the right term though by any means...perhaps "Bitching Rights".
For instance, when I say to a group of friends, "My grandma called me Mr. Long Arms today." A collective "aww" is heard until I continue with, "Then I back-handed her."
"OH MY GAWD YOU'RE HORRIBLE!"
"It's okay, I live with her" doesn't seem to cut it. But nobody realizes that living with your grandparents takes away the childhood happiness and replaces it with a more human respect. I enjoy the humor in the generation differences, too.

I still wouldn't share with my grandma that I tell people I back-hand her.

Things are a'changin'!

Fox News is never on anymore. After my grandpa passed in March, my grandma refuses to watch anything but local news. By the way, my grandpa really threw us a curveball on that one. We all expected him to live at least 30 years longer than our grandma. The big C, cancer, it's a bitch.

Since then, my grandma has slowly been reorganizing the house to better fit her needs. This particular task was moving the stand-alone Maytag Frigidaire Freezer, similar to this one, from downstairs to the garage.

My grandma took pity on me and asked a couple neighbors to assist me in this production. The first to arrive to help was a gentlemen in his early 50's. We shook hands and went downstairs to evaluate the situation. 

"Jesus, holy Christ" was his initial response after seeing the freezer. He walks over to the little two-wheeler that my grandma supplied us with to take it up the stairs.

"Yeah, that's what she wants us to use" I said with a smirk.

"Ha, no we're not." Luckily, the other neighbor had just arrived with an industrial two-wheeler that looked like a better fit for the job.

One of them opened the freezer to see that it was full of food as I said, "She thought we could just move it with the food in it."

They both chuckled and said "nope" and went to find laundry baskets to fill with frozen food.

As we started emptying it out, we pulled out food dating back to the late 80's. I fully expected this, having emptied the freezer before. These two neighbors thought that my grandma was insane...which, come to think of it, may not be too far from the truth.

"Gloria, you've got 14 year old shredded cheese down here!" one of them yelled up to my grandma only to hear her reply with,

"Just leave it in there and I'll go through that later!"

Bringing our voices down, we all muttered things like "she's never going to throw that out" and "that's staying in there forever" amongst ourselves.

After emptying it, we shimmied it onto the two-wheeler and noisily wheeled it up the stairs, out the front door, and into the garage.

After the neighbors left I still had the task of putting the food back in the freezer. All the frozen vegetables on one shelf with all the frozen bread, pie crusts, and whipped cream on another (don't ask me how she accumulates so much whipped cream, it just happens). As I was putting all the frozen meats from every era on the last shelf, I looked specifically for the meat I found in this past post dating back to 1992. Much to my horror and panic, I couldn't find it. I doubt that she threw it out because I buried it at the back of the freezer. So only one of two things could've happened: I ate it in some beef stew variation, or it aged so much that it evolved into a living being and it is now living in basement furnace room. 

Either way, I don't have to worry about it anymore as I don't live there anymore. Fox News will never be on again!

I love my grandparents.

Fox News was not on due to it being lunch time and my grandma's favorite cooking show was on instead. I was making a sandwich before leaving the house and my grandma was cooking up a soup. As my grandpa walks into the kitchen he hears this old cook lady on TV talking with a huge southern accent and dropping "Y'alls" left and right.
"Y'ALL." my grandpa said. "Y'ALL." The second time he smiled a bit more while saying it looking for a reaction. My grandma slowly turned around, probably offended somehow, responds.
"Well they wouldn't like the way you talk down there either!"
"Well, why not?" My grandpa is not going down without a fight.
"...well, because you don't talk like they do."
My grandpa pauses for effect and says, "I've never had anyone tell me they don't like the way I talk."
My grandma still stuck on the subject is walking away saying "the south is still fighting the civil war." I however notice that my grandpa is putting Rice Chex in his soup.
"Grandpa, what - what are you doing?"
He clearly states, "I'm putting cereal in my soup." He looks up and smiles at me and says, "It's easier than making toast."
We shared a small laugh, or, a chortle if you will. I soon finished my sandwich and was on my way with not a sound of Fox News Alerts to be heard, because Fox News was not on.

What?

Fox News was on in the dining room while the BCS bowl game was on in the living room. My grandpa was in the dining room with the lights off sitting approximately three feet from the TV screen. My grandma and I were sitting in the living room with the lights on at a healthy distance of one living room's width. TVs blaring loudly in both rooms, naturally.
I had been sitting watching the game for about 15 minutes noticing that there was a beeping noise coming from somewhere. I had just assumed it was from some clip on Fox News. But after hearing it for that 15 minutes, I realized that something in the house was beeping. I got up and quickly realized it was coming from the kitchen stove. I turned on the lights and my grandpa turned around in his chair looking at me. I stopped and looked at the beeping stove which read "F1" on its screen.
M grandpa, not having heard the beeping, asked, "Are you wanting to make something?"
Somewhat surprised that he didn't hear this beeping, I said, "Nah, the stove is beeping and it says F1 on the screen here. Has that ever happened before?"
"Boy, I don't think so. Grandma did the self-cleaning mode on this yesterday, I wonder if that messed it up somehow."
By this time my grandma had made it to the kitchen wondering what the fuss was about. It's about to go off...
"Gloria, what did you do for the self-cleaning mode."
"What?"
"Did the self-cleaning mode mess up the oven here?"
"WHAT??"
"WHAT DID YOU DO FOR THE SELF-CLEANING MODE??"
I had pinned myself against the counter trying to get out of the way of the eyesight between my grandparents. After hearing them raise their voices, I wondered if we would have to be yelling if the two TVs that were twenty feet from each other did not have their volumes up at 46. It was really loud in this house! But my grandma cooly replied, "Well, I just pushed this and flipped this."
We didn't figure out the problem, but after resetting the power, it stopped beeping. And really, it only helped me out because I was the only one who could hear the beeping in the first place! The lights were turned off again and they resumed their respected seats at their respected TVs. The house was again ringing with sounds from blaring TVs of bowl games and Fox News.

OMG NO ICE CREAM??!

Fox News was on. It was also time for dinner. And in this particular occasion, my cousin was able to join in on this wonderful "Dinner with Fox News" tradition. The main course was pretty uneventful, the dessert however, almost saw some rolling heads.
"Drew, why don't you go get three small plates and bring over the apple turnovers?"
"Sure" I replied to my grandma. As I was getting up I heard my grandpa start.
"Go get some ice cream too to go with the apple turnovers." After hearing this, my cousin and I both politely objected to putting ice cream on our desserts.
"But do you want ice cream, Grandpa?" I asked him.
"No." He said nodding his head and shrugging his shoulders. My grandma sounded almost offended by this.
"You don't want any ICE CREAM?!"
"I was just seeing if they wanted ice cream on their apple TURNOVERS!"
By then, in the following silence, I'd frozen, halfway to the table with plates and turnovers. My cousin and I were both bug-eyed.
Just as the audio of Fox News was retaking the room, I slowly got back to my normal pace. I had set the plates down with the turnovers and we ate in silence as if nothing happened.
Fox News was on.

Déjà vu

Fox News was not on and I'm beginning to see more and more of this (unless it's 3:30, then you can hear Glenn Beck shouting from some lone TV in the house). I had just walked upstairs to get a glass of water. Just as I was about to return to the basement I hear from my Grandma exclaim my name.
"Drew?"
"Yeah, grandma?" I replied as I walked back up the top two stairs and into the living room.
"Do you ever find yourself wanting hot cocoa?"
"... ...I guess I've probably thought about it, at some point."
"Well sometimes it's so cold outside and it seems really nice to have some hot cocoa!"
I wanted to say, "Well, grandma, on cold days I like to have a small glass of scotch to end my day!" but instead, I said, "Yeah, okay!"
After a little more small talk, I returned to the basement, leaving them to their evening programs.