Road Trip with Grandma

We are on an unexpected trip to Florida with Grandma. Ten hours with nothing to do but listen to her. She is nice and settled in by Macon and so she starts.

"You should not give them peanut butter with the...the....the...things in them."

"Peanuts?"

"Yes. Give them the other one."

"Creamy?"

"Yes. But you can buy the other one for you if you like that."

"Okay."

Somewhere south of Tifton she brings up the shirts again.

"Please, please, do me that favor. Don't leave them without shirt. They...they...uh...they..."

"Chests?"

"Yes! They chest so little. Always leave them with shirt. Even if they don't have sleeve. Please, Sindy."

"Okay."

It isn't until we are rolling passed Valdosta that the state of my soul comes up.

"Church people are so nice. Not all of them. But the ones at Tricia's church are so nice. Children who go to church are better than the other ones."

"The kids go every Sunday."

"But the people don't know who their mother is! They never see you!"

"Uh-huh."

"And you know, if you go to that church, you will find people to watch the kids for free. And when you need to move they will bring trucks."

Years she's been trying to get me saved and join my sister's church coughcultcough and the usual points in her pitch - not letting poor Jesus' suffering to be in vain and the avoidance of eternal fiery damnation - clearly are not doing the trick so she is ticking off more practical benefits to organized Christianity: childcare and moving men at my beck and call.

Two of the three plastic slinky toys the kids have been playing with have become entangled. My niece gives up trying to separate them and passes the mass up to my mother. From Jacksonville to Melbourne my mother, in a squint eyed, tongue-hanging-out-of-corner-of-mouth concentration, pulls and twists and yanks on the neon colored toys. In complete silence.

For the next road trip with Grandma, I'll be bringing along a barrel full of those slinkies.