I’d like to take a moment in blogging to remember my grandmother. My Dad’s mom. The meanest, most cantankerous person ever born.

Imagine a woman: 4 feet tall, 4 feet wide with giant Madonna bulletbra boobs and a shellacked hairdo to rival Sarah Palin’s. Chainsmoking and cursing out the Yankees.

I think it was the Yankees. It could have been the Mets, but I’m not sure. It WAS 14 years ago….

My sister, Murm, just confirmed that it didn’t matter who was on. She basically just liked to yell at the game.

Most children learn cursing in gradeschool. In the playground. From the older kids (or maybe some of the teachers if you’re lucky enough to have a blatantly drunk teaching staff like i did in the 1980’s). I learned to call someone a “Shit-eating-Cocksmoker” and I totally believe that she told me that Ronald Regan was a “Fucktard”.

It was pretty useful when confronted in camp by the teen counselors who I caught making out behind the toolshed. When an 8 year old calls you a “fat-faced needle-dick” and a “flabby-titted gutter-slut” you either kill him or die laughing.

I learned a lot from grandma. Like, just because someone’s eyes are open, doesn’t mean that they’re awake. Even if they’re smoking. And cussing out that crackhead Daryl Strawberry.

Once my little sister tried to change the channel because she wasn’t blinking. We both thought she had fallen asleep in her chair while watching the game and we wanted to watch whatever crappy movie was on WPIX’s Sunday movie extravaganza. Well, the searing pain of a flicked cigarette showed her who’s the boss.

Grandma hated my older sister too. And it transfered to her kids.

Once out of nowhere Grandma took one of my sister’s daughters at the tender age of 7, sat her down in the kitchen, lit up a fresh cigarette and laid down the knowledge:

You are fat. You are so fat that you will NEVER get a man. Not ever. You’re going to be a spinstress and wind up all alone drinking jug-wine in your kitchen.

Here. Have a cookie.

Needless to say that 20 years later the girl still cringes when offered an Oreo.