If you obey all the rules you’ll miss all the fun.
~Author Unknown
At Christmastime our entire family would gather for dinner at a relative’s home. Dish after dish would be proudly carried in as everyone brought their signature dish to share. The main table basically became a trough, its entire expanse covered in dishes. Almost any dish you could possibly want was available, including turkey, ham, scalloped potatoes, corn, and, oh, the dressing! Most of the meal paled in comparison to the exquisite perfection of the dressings and gravy. Our family practically mainlined dressing, and gravy was nearly a beverage.
As always, the host was seated at the head of the table while the other end was reserved for the eldest among us. In the seat of honor, Grandma discovered to her delight, she now had almost unlimited access to the foods on each side of the main table.
The turkey wouldn’t be the only gobbler at the table that day.
As a diabetic, Grandma had to be careful about what she ate but rarely was. We tried to monitor her for her own good, but she was slick, and we couldn’t appeal to her logic because she also had dementia. If you weren’t careful, she could consume a sizable amount of food in minutes. If we caught her, she was not only unrepentant, but her smile grew broader as her gaze continued to rove over the assorted dishes. She loved a challenge.
One or more of those among us had prepared an “herbal” dressing and discreetly placed it upon the young-adult table, more than likely with accompanying nudges and suppressed giggles for the privileged few who were privy to its secret ingredient. It was intended only for a few, but depending upon how you looked at it — fortunately or unfortunately — it was placed within easy reach of Grandma. It didn’t go unnoticed.
Stealthily, Grandma surveyed the room. Then, slowly and subtly, she pinched a bite and sat happily chewing with clandestine pleasure. A bigger pinch, another bite and, before anyone noticed, she had created a moderate crater in the delicious, savory dish.
Grandma’s happy chatter increased. She became positively euphoric, participating voluntarily in the conversations, which was unusual. She was usually content to sit back and listen. As everyone sat down to eat, the bowl was discreetly passed around among the informed few at that table. Perhaps one of the guilty parties noticed the large divot but attributed it to someone else at that table. After the blessing, it was like someone fired a starter’s pistol, and she was off. Grandma dominated the conversation at the table that day, regaling everyone with stories from her past. To everyone’s shock and some’s delight, many of Grandma’s stories were remarkably bawdy, and some were potentially prosecutable.
She told story after story that afternoon, as her children and grandchildren alternately gaped in shock and roared with laughter. No one left the table while she talked, enjoying a side of Grandma that none of us had ever known existed. But then, midway through the meal, someone at the young-adult table must have snapped to attention when they saw Grandma snag another wad from the nearly empty dish that had migrated back to within her reach. When she had helped herself to more, jaws sagged, and eyes bulged. To that table’s occupants, there was now an obvious explanation for Grandma’s uplifted mood: She had been surreptitiously eating from the private side dish for a while.
The “chef” was in a dilemma. That bowl had been meant for just a select few because the dressing had been prepared with a secret “herb” in addition to sage and oregano. In the seventies many foods were starting to be prepared with that particularly popular “herb.” Instead of baking a pie that Thanksgiving, one of our enterprising young chefs had inadvertently “baked” Grandma.
Her elevated mood lasted into the evening until my aunt finally caught on. She had become somewhat familiar with those particular symptoms of euphoria from a late-in-life student career at a local college. A little bit shocked but giggling, she informed her siblings of her suspicions. After tasting the suspect dressing, she smacked her lips and determined that the dressing was “loaded.” No one asked how she was familiar with that particular herb.
She and her siblings decided that the proper punishment involved ensconcing Grandma in the midst of the suspects where she rambled on and on through the evening as they tried to watch TV and play cards.
The guilty party was never identified because the young adults had quickly emptied the bowls after seeing Auntie tasting the dressing, but everyone had their suspicions.
After her buzz wore off, Grandma finally wound down and was tucked in for the night. Her lusty snores, like golf balls in a wood chipper, kept the household awake. Hopefully, the guilty party got very little rest that night.
We now know that medical marijuana has been proven to help relieve symptoms of depression. Perhaps our errant chef was simply ahead of their time, providing an inadvertent service that day.
And as for Grandma? We never looked at her quite the same way again. In relating stories of her youth, we all saw her as a young person like us who had made her own fun and mistakes.
She became more than just “Grandma” that day; she became one of us.
— Laurel L. Shannon —
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