I am checking out the items of an older woman with her young grandson. Two younger women are in the line behind them, and from how they’re talking and their body language, it’s obvious they’re a couple.

Younger Woman #1: “Oh, honey! We forgot the butter!”

Younger Woman #2: “Oh, crap! You’re right! Can you run back and grab some? Love you forever!”

One of them runs back to get their forgotten butter, and the little boy grabs his grandmother’s attention.

Boy: “Grandma! That lady called that other lady ‘honey’! But I thought only daddies called mommies that!”

Grandma: “Well… maybe Honey is actually her name.”

The younger woman comes back with the butter, and they go back to waiting, but now they’re holding hands.

Boy: “Grandma! That lady is holding hands with the other lady! I thought only daddies held hands with mommies?”

Grandma: *To me, pleadingly* “Look, could you hurry it up?!”

I try to hurry, but she’s getting a lot of items, and my bagger can also only go so fast.

Boy: “Grandma! Why are they holding hands?”

Grandma: “[Boy]! Mind your own business! Maybe they’re just sisters!”

At this point, one of the younger women has said something cute to the other, and they laugh and share a quick peck on the lips.

Boy: “Grandma! I don’t kiss my sister like that!”

I snort in an attempt to hold back a laugh.

Grandma: *To me* “This wouldn’t have happened if you’d just hurried up!” *To the women* “And you! Thanks to you, my grandson is going to be full of questions! Now I have to tell him about all the sinners in the world and ruin his innocence! You did that!”

Younger Woman #1: “Lady, if you think healthy expressions of love will ruin his innocence, then you’re damaging him far more than we ever will.”

Me: “Ma’am, your total is $221.54.”

Grandma: *To me* “About f****** time!”

She paid and stormed off with her poor confused grandchild.

When my mom was a kid, my grandmother once went to the grocery store and decided to buy ten pounds of beef. There was a sale on… I think it was tenderloin. It was some kind of more expensive boneless steak cut, at any rate.

Well, instead of having the meat cut into steaks, my grandmother had it ground into hamburger meat. Mom was horrified.

Mom: “Why did you do that?!”

Nanny: “Because you girls won’t eat steaks.”

Mom: “Yes, we will!”

Mom said it was the best hamburger she’s ever had.

This story is from before I really was in IT since I was still in high school, around 2002 to 2004 if I recall correctly. I was the go-to tech support for my maternal grandparents. My grandfather had just bought a new pretty early digital camera and was having fun with it, trying to figure out how the machine worked using the manual.

He got pretty far with it but kept running into an error, so he phoned me. It sounded pretty strange to me. Every time he snapped a picture, his camera would tell him there was an error. But the picture was there and it was good. So, on my bicycle I hopped to pay them a visit.

Once I had the camera in my hands, I was able to take pictures and didn’t notice anything wrong with it. I didn’t even see the error message my grandfather had been having issues with. I handed it back to him, and the first picture he took displayed the error message again, according to him. So, we repeated the steps, now both looking at the display to find out what would go wrong. He snapped a picture.

Grandfather: *Immediately* “There it is!”

Camera Display: “Storing.”

It clicked for me. The camera had been set up to use the Dutch language, not the English language, though somehow this message was still in English. I didn’t register the discrepancy, but there it was.

“Storing” in Dutch means malfunction or failure, not to write a file to memory and store it there.

It was one of my first lessons in rule one: “Users lie” — even though this user really thought he was getting error messages.

An elderly couple comes into our pet store.

Man: “We need to get a hat for our granddaughter’s pet. We’re visiting her across the country for the first time, and this is what we’ve been asked to bring for her birthday.”

Woman: “So silly to get a hat for an animal. But if that’s what she wants…”

Me: “Well, we have a decent selection. Is this for a dog?”

Man: “I… I actually don’t know.”

Woman: “You don’t know? Doesn’t [Granddaughter] make you say hello to the thing every time you FaceTime?”

Man: “I don’t really pay attention. She’s always calling when I’m watching the golf, so…”

Woman: “Well, it has to be a dog… right?”

Man: “You mean you don’t know, either?”

Woman: “I always thought it was a cat. It makes such high-pitched noises.”

She turns to me.

Woman: “Do cats wear hats?”

Me: “Sometimes, but it’s far more common on dogs since they’re usually more amenable to wearing clothes.”

Man: “Shall we call her?”

Woman: “I’m not calling her to ask if her pet is a cat or a dog!”

Me: “Do you perhaps have any pictures of the pet?”

Man: “I think so! Let me check!”

He managed to find an image of the creature that might have been a cat or a dog.

It was a parrot.

I am the author of the Stab Caesar Salad/Drug Grandma stories, and it’s time for another episode of this saga. Buckle up; this one’s a doozy. 

Grandma is almost ninety-four, and she’s sharp as a tack, but she’s an expert at playing stupid. She is super manipulative and really bad at handling her money. When she moved in with us, she was drowning in credit card debt. My dad, realizing he would be responsible for that debt if she died, immediately took control of her debit card, canceled all of her credit cards, and consolidated her debt. He then worked with her and managed to get it paid off.

Grandma was offended when none of the credit card companies sent her a thank-you card after she paid off her debt even though she was a “loyal customer that they know personally.”

Dad uses her debit card to pay for things like her prescriptions, special food she wants, copays on doctor visits, etc. He does not allow her to shop on [TV Shopping Network] anymore, and despite what she tells people, he does let her get a few things she wants — but only after her needs are taken care of.

My uncle is just as bad with money. He retired early, spent a few years traveling around America until he ran out of money, and now resides on his daughter’s couch. 

[Uncle] takes Grandma to her doctor’s appointments while my dad is working. Dad always gives [Uncle] Grandma’s debit card for the expenses. [Uncle] always has my cousin’s dog with him so he doesn’t have to go inside the doctor’s office with Grandma, and he gives her the debit card. She always gives it back when she’s done, and my dad gets it back when they get home. It’s a good system.

One day, we get some packages that are addressed to “Grandma [Last Name].” Only my cousin sends her packages with “Grandma” written on them instead of her first name. They are mega-expensive vitamins that Grandma saw in a commercial on TV claiming to be the best, and since commercials never lie, she had to have them. This wouldn’t be the first time she manipulated my cousin into buying her something either she already had at home or my dad had said no to for whatever reason.

My mom is pissed because Grandma makes her special-order vitamins that aren’t available in stores, and further questioning reveals that Grandma wants to be on both vitamins at the same time. Did she ask us to get her these new vitamins? No. Why?

Grandma: “I knew you would’ve just said no.”

Over the next week, several more packages of various expensive junk arrive addressed to “Grandma [Last Name].” We are confused. My dad calls my cousin, but she says she hasn’t bought Grandma any of that stuff.

Then, my dad gets the statement for Grandma’s debit card. One time, while at the doctor’s office, when my uncle was waiting in the car, she wrote down her debit card number on a scrap piece of paper and hid it. Dad and Grandma get into a huge argument that boils down to:

Grandma: “It’s my money! I should be able to spend it how I want!”

Dad: “Blowing your money on stupid s*** is how you got into debt in the first place!”

Grandma: “Well, I’m going to call my social worker and my lawyer, and they’ll make you give me complete control of my money!”

Dad: “You don’t have a lawyer!”

Grandma: “Then I’ll hire one!”

Dad: “You have no money!”

Grandma: “They’ll do it for free!”

This went on for almost half an hour. I removed the name-calling that was mostly done by my grandmother. She truly believed that she could get a lawyer to take her case for free (or nearly free) and she would win. Surprising no one, we never got a visit from a lawyer about this. Grandma could not understand why we were all mad at her. We were kind of hoping she would make good on her threat and call social services and they would take her away. 

Two or three weeks later, a social worker showed up at our house. (The social worker actually tried to visit earlier, but Dad was in a meeting at work and asked her to come back later.) Grandma actually called them, though she claimed ignorance. No one believed her and she didn’t understand why. The social worker talked to Grandma, and then she talked to my dad and came back with this:

Social Worker: “We can’t get her into a home permanently, but we can get her into one for a two-week period so you and your family can have a break from her.”

For whatever reason, my dad did not take her up on this offer.

Related:
We Should Totally Just Lock Grandma In The Bathroom (Not Really)
We Should Totally Just Drown Our Salads
We Should Totally Just Drug Grandma! (Not Really), Part 2
We Should Totally Just Drug Grandma! (Not Really)
We Should Totally Just Stab Caesar! (Salad), Part 2