Beware of the Greasy Back Cancer!

It's real!! My Uncle Loyd DIED from it! The GREASY BACK CANCER! Be afraid. Be very afraid. Because unless you either use a scrubby brush on a stick or have some unsuspecting (and unwilling) family member clean your back for you, you, too, could fall victim of this awful affliction. I'm serious. Uncle Loyd died!! He did.

At least that's grandma's story.

And she's sticking to it.

So now you're asking yourself, what in the hell am I talking about.

It's like this: The other night Grandma took a bath (something which, in my opinion, she doesn't do often enough) and before she got in she informed me that in a few minutes I could come and wash her back for her. I guess she has decided that this job should be my punishment for leaving her little scrubby-on-a-stick at her house--that's the only semi-rational reason I can see for thinking that she has any right whatsoever to try and force me to endure her nekkid grandma self. So anyway, yeah, she gets in the bathroom and then pokes her head out of the door and announces to me that I am to come into the bathroom and wash her back. The first time she said it I told her, in no uncertain terms, that I would not be doing any such thing. The second time she said it (she chose to ignore my response and was hoping, I guess, that if she said it again that it would make it so) I just pretended to be deaf. Two can play that game.

Time passed.

She emerged from bathroom, dressed for bed, and very pitifully demanded--(Yes, as strange as it sounds, you can, in fact, pitifully demand; Grandma has perfected the art of the pitiful demand.)--to know why I had not come in and washed her back.

Well, I told her, as I did before she'd gotten in the tub, that it just wasn't in my job description and I just simply wasn't gonna do it. Of course this prompted her to remind me that she had taken care of me and washed my back all those years when I was a child. She loves to use that--that she took care of me (or Dad or Liz, depending upon who she's talking to and about)--as justification for why I should be at her beck and call and always willing to do whatever icky task she needs for me to do. But it doesn't fly with me. I have an obligation to my children to take care of them until they are old enough and capable enough to take care of themselves. That's what parents (or caretakers/guardians) do. This does not mean that they, the children, are obligated to reciprocate. Grandma wishes that it were that way, but it's not. So there.

Anyway, so after not getting anywhere much with the whole "I did it for you" spiel, she tried a different tactic, and that's where the GREASY BACK CANCER comes in.

You see, if I don't wash her back for her she might, as Uncle Loyd did, acquire a build up of oils on her back that will turn into, as it did for poor ol' Uncle Loyd (whoever he is--I do not know this person and I suspect that he lived way before my time), the dreaded BACK CANCER. And won't I be sorry then, when Grandma is stricken with the greasy back cancer and dies from it 'cause it will be all my fault!

Woe is Grandma.

All because I wouldn't come into the bathroom and wash her back for her this one evening.

I am not joking.

This conversation really took place. And she was serious!

I know it's mean, but I laughed out loud. Hysterically. I snorted I was laughing so hard. I had to leave the room.

Fortunately Liz brought her scrubby-on-a-stick over soon after all this went down so no more greasy back cancer argument. Or need for me to endure any grandma nekkidness. (Although she still wants me to come in and check on her when she's in the tub. I'm beginning to wonder if my grandmother isn't some kind of exhibitionist or something.)

But anyway, the scrubby-on-a-stick is here and all is well for now.

Except the other day I noticed this little spot right in the middle of my back. . .

Next time I'm in the shower I'll get Lizzie to come and check it out for me.

:-)