Of A Old Grumpy Lady

“The bitch is mad” says my aunt.

“Someone should poison her. Do you want to poison her?
I’ll pay you, just tell me how much you want”

I am oh-so tempted.

It is 4.30am and I am on the phone with her.

I text her because I was worried about my cousin,

who started to text me 30mins ago.

Grandmother is nuts she tells me,
she got back half an hour late and my grandmother was screaming the walls down.

Her new curfew is 11pm.

She wants to move out.

I see her point, but old people do like to nag,

if only to make themselves feel more useful

as the onset

of even older age lessens their burdens and responsibilities.

My cousin unluckily, lives with my grandmother.

Her curfew had previously been set at 3am,

and she may have overshot a bit on weekends but other than that

she’s pretty well behaved.

She doesn’t really talk to me about her problems,

we have normal but not in depth conversations,

and occasionally I play

supercousin by helping her get

out of jams, giving advice on “how-to-explain” and covering up.

So I know that she must be pretty upset to text me at 4 in the morning.

I sympathise, I tell her I’ll talk to the old lady tomorrow.

And I will, diplomatic Libran that I am.

Poor girl, when I was 19 I was living with my boyfriend and

traversing the globe for months at end.

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“Nana hates me” I text my mom.

She calls immediately “Tell me why your grandma hates you...”


I have just had the discussion(if you could call it that) with her about my cousin

"At least she called to say she was going to be late", I say, "she doesnt go out every single night, and has been good, if her mother allows it, then you shouldn't intervene"

and it has ended with my grandmother shouting,

“Don’t do anything for me, don't ask me for anything, I don’t want to say or do anything anymore since you all say everything I do is wrong!”

“She says that just because I got to do the stuff I did at 19, doesn’t mean Melissa gets to run wild like I did. What the fuck? Look at me Mom, did I turn out bad?”

“Was she crying?” asks my Mom.

“No, she was foaming,” says I.

“Then it’s not that bad, don’t break out the poison just yet”.