The Morning After

Sooooo, it's the morning after Grandma's first official night at our house. And already I'm feeling homicidal. Not a good sign.

In all fairness, though, it's not all her. It is PMS time again and that plays a huge role in my feelings towards other human beings in general. But already we're having issues with the "please" thing. Having her demand that I fulfill some kind of "need" of hers just lights my fanny on fire. ("Carmen, I need a cereal bowl!" "I need the juice opened!" "I need for you to come here!")

PEOPLE IN HELL NEED ICE WATER, GRANDMA!

Say PLEASE!

"Open the juice." "Please."

Not once a sincere please. Not yet.

And then there's the talking no matter that the person she's talking to is already engaged in conversation with someone else. She simply doesn't care who's talking to whom, when she has something to say she's going to say it. It drives me wild. Donald, bless his saintly heart, seems perfectly OK just ignoring her. I'm trying that tactic, but it's difficult.

So on top of teaching her please we now have to work on not interrupting.

And then there's this whole deafness routine.

OK, maybe it's not a routine, but it seems to me that when you don't want her hearing something she has ears like those of a rabbit. No problem at all picking up on things that aren't directed at her and don't concern her. But comments intended for her? Suddenly she has issues. There were two instances of this just this a.m. The first one was about the microwave. Which, first off, she insists on talking from other rooms. No matter where in the house she is and no matter what the other people in the house are doing, she'll start talking. So OK, I hear her in the kitchen.

"Carmen, I need you to tell me how to work this microwave."

(There's that need thing again!)

"Press timer, punch in three, zero for thirty seconds and then press start."

"What?!"

I repeat myself.

"What's that last part? That last thing you said?"

"Press START!"

"What?!"

"PRESS START!!!"

"Dark?"

Thank god Donald was here. Even if he was enjoying this whole transaction a little too much, he did, upon being asked, go into the kitchen and show her the damned "start" button, thereby diffusing the situation. I mean, even if she is deaf (which she's not), we were talking about the microwave. All she had to do was pause a moment to actually process and think about what was being said to her: "Gee, she's saying a word that sounds like 'dark' but that can't be right and since we're discussing the microwave oven. . .what word sounds like 'dark' but would have something to do with the microwave? Oh, I know! I bet that she's saying 'start.'"

Oh, and then there was the weather.

I was sitting on the living room couch and I was on the phone, calling social services in Wake county to see about applying for services for her, when from her bedroom or the bathroom or someplace over in that direction anyway I hear "Carmen, what is the temperature supposed to be. Do I need a coat? What's the temperature?" Now I'm trying to listen and figure out which of the 1001 automated options it is that I need to choose in order to speak to someone, the stereo is on and already providing a slight distraction and then Grandma decides, without bothering to see where I am or what I'm doing, to insist that I become her personal meterologist and clothing consultant. Grrrr. So anyway, I hiss at her that I'm on the phone. She doesn't/can't/refuses to hear me and says again, "CARMEN! What's the temperature!" A little louder this time: "Grandma, I'm on the phone." "CARMEN!" "GRANDMA I'M ON THE PHONE!" "Oh, you're on the phone."

Grrrrrr.

Breathe.

I think I'm going to be working much longer hours soon.