Below is an excerpt from an email my dad sent me today. He recently visited my grandmother.
“Something funny happened while I was at her house. She told your sister that she could have an old cast iron teapop that she has had for years. It belonged to her grandmother. She asked if there was anything that you might like. I said I didn’t know and she should ask you. Then she said do you think he would like the civil war needle. It was used by her grandfather during the war. It is the needle, the part that hold the medicine, and all in a wood case. I said yes, I think he might like to have that. She said she had considered giving it to you before but was afraid you would use it for drugs. I thought that was funny. I told her I didn’t really think John would stick a 150 year old needle in his arm or any other needle for that matter. She has strange ideas.”
So does my grandmother already think I am a recreational IV drug user? Or that the Civil War era antique needle will entice me to try shooting up?
One of my mother’s insaner friends once told me that the young men of today were all prematurely bald because of drug use. It was back in the late 1980s, so maybe she was reacting to the steroid craze?
So, Living Well Is Best Revenge, what *are *you going to do with your great grandfather’s war needle?
Granny lived in an age where this type of rampant drug use was not common. She watches TV and hears the news yet she is unaware of the specifics of how thing work today. But she is interested in your welfare and wants no part of influencing you improperly. I see nothing weird about it. She simply has a far different perspective of things because of the vast age difference.
My maternal grandmother was a character. When I was in my mid-20s, she was mid-60s (Dang, just a little older than I am now) and she used to buy bodice-rippers from a local thrift store for a quarter each. When she finished them, she’d pass them to me, letting me know which ones had “good parts” in them. :eek:
My mother would have been appalled, but it just cracked me up.