Games to Play With Your Crazy Grandma

            My mother is nuts.

            This may sound funny, but it’s not.

            When I was growing up things were really tough, because I was an only child, and my dad was an MIA heroin addict.

            This is not meant to be a sob story, though.

            The funny thing is the way my kids and I now cope with my mother’s nuttiness.

            She has two distinct personalities, with several shades thrown in. When she’s in her rage mode, there’s nothing to do but jump into a foxhole and duck.

            When she’s a little girl, we can at least have a conversation – though it’s ridiculous, because she doesn’t know anything – not even how to make a cup of tea in the microwave.

            My kids have come up with a unique way of dealing with her little girl mode: they tell her outrageous stories, and she believes them.

            Casey, my twelve year old, told her he has a tomato farm in Georgia.

He says they ship him the plants UPS, and he can have a nice ripe tomato delivered to her door for the low price of $29.95.

            “Gee, thanks,” she said.

            Michael, my seventeen year old, told her that on senior cut day the seniors all go to the beach in their hot air balloons.

            “Wow,” she said. “That must be quite a sight.”

            She asked Casey if he got a haircut (obviously, he did.) “No,” he said. “I have a follicle disorder. My hair doesn’t grow. It’s been like this for ten months already.”

            “Really?” she asked.

            “It’s deadly. We’re lucky we caught it in time,” he added.

            “I had no idea,” she said.

            He lowered his head solemnly. “It’s something I have to live with.”

            Michael said, “But think of all the money he saves in a lifetime of haircuts!” Michael is always the optimist.

            Casey said, “It’s called follicle mysopica.”

            “Do you mean myalgia?” Mom asked.

            “Yeah,” he said. “You’ve heard of it?”

            She nodded. “I think so.”

            I spent the large part of the conversation hiding my face in a napkin so I wouldn’t laugh in her face.

            As ridiculous and sublime as this all sounds, it’s so great to share my mother’s craziness with kindred souls.

            And it’s a family activity.

            Some families use Scrabble or Clue. My kids and I bond over “Nunu doesn’t have a clue.”

            It works for us.