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Grandfathers.

A lot of people love theirs.

"IF YOU THINK I WON'T PUT YOU INTO THE WALL JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE MY FLESH AND BLOOD, YOU ARE SORELY MISTAKEN !!! I'LL KILL YOU, YOU LITTLE MOTHERFUCKER!!!"

They’re portrayed in the media as kind, gentle, friendly old men who want to watch the weather channel or read stories to their grandkids. They have the wisdom that comes from years spent during kinder, gentler times.

Times when a gallon of gas cost eleven cents, women couldn’t drive, and the fucking neighbor kids stayed off of the god damn lawn.

My grandfather does not fit this delightful stereotype. Far from it, unfortunately. He’s old, to be certain – he turned 88 yesterday, but I wouldn’t describe him as kind, gentle OR friendly. He leans more towards, “Crazy, incontinent and sort of mean”.

I got to spend most of my day yesterday hanging out with him.

It started out innocently enough. The family hopped in the van so we could spend an hour and a half in a car driving to an Olive Garden in another city.

It seemed like a decent plan – Eat some breadsticks, listen to him bitch for a little bit about how I don’t come to see him enough, get a lecture about Jesus,  listen to him complain that he’s old and in pain and then claim that I don’t understand what it’s like if I try to offer sympathy, pay the bill and then spend another hour and a half driving home.

And that’s how it went…sort of. When we showed up, it was the apocalypse at the Olive Garden. The reception area was swarming with people. There was hardly anywhere to stand, much less sit. Our party was already on the waiting list, so I found a seat and waited for our little buzzer to go off.

I have spent some time working in restaurants, and as a result, I treat dining out the same way I handle getting pulled over by a police officer; I try to be as unintrusive, polite and unmemorable as possible. I know that the people serving me are fellow humans just trying to make a living, and deserve to be treated as such. I also know that they are preparing a product that I am going to put in my mouth and swallow, they’re doing it somewhere where I can’t watch them prepare it, and they’re not getting paid very much to do it. It’s true that you’re paying them, and it’s their job, and you should expect a certain level of service in exchange for your hard earned cash. Here’s my counter-argument:

They are preparing a product that I am going to put in my mouth and swallow, they’re doing it somewhere where I can’t watch them prepare it, and they’re not getting paid very much to do it.

The defense rests, your honor.

My grandfather does not see it that way.

Olive Garden's special "Toilet Paper" Will do in a pinch. For God's sake, you get as many of them as you want!

As soon as I showed up, he was bent out of shape because there was no toilet paper in the Men’s room. He complained about it to the hostess. You know, the one who was dealing with seven hundred people trying to get a seat at the Olive Garden. No toilet paper in the men’s room is certainly a problem, but probably relatively low on her list of priorities. 45 minutes later, they were still prioritizing “Getting people sat and fed as quickly as possible” (which, for the record, is the point of fucking restaurants) over “giving my Grandfather something to wipe his butt with”, so he demanded to speak to a manager.

I don’t know what they do to Olive Garden managers, but they all have that “I’m so friendly that it crosses the line from being endearing to really uncomfortable” thing going. It’s like they’ve had a lobotomy, or they hang out in the kitchen and huff paint all day. Either way, he came out and replaced the toilet paper, averting the disaster.

We hadn’t even sat down at our table yet, and we were already off to a fantastic start. As we walked to our seats, I wondered just how angry the hostess was and how many sets of balls would get a chance to gently perch on top of my food before it was brought to me.

The meal was innocuous enough. My grandfather always wants salad, and then thinks that the servers are trying to swindle him when they bring out those big bowls of salad that everyone eats from, but after we tried to explain to him that there’s as much as he wants, he calms down.

We finished, my Dad paid the bill to avoid any retarded fights, and we got ready to go. I was in the clear.

At least, that’s what I thought.

“Did anyone save room for desert?” our server asked us.

“No, we have cake and ice cream at home,” my Grandfather responded curtly.

And that was when the real fun begin.

As soon as we got to my grandfather’s house, we sat down in the living room with him.

It started out with the usual. He made it clear that he was in terrible health, and he had diabetes and cancer and this was probably the last time we would ever see him, so we should be nice to him.

I always find this conversation kind of insulting. It makes it sound like he thinks that I’m going to be a dick to him, but that I’ll decide “Ah, hell. I’ll go easy on him, because he’ll be dead soon.” I’m not retarded. I know that people die, and I don’t base how nice I am to them on how much longer I think that they’re going to live. The real problem, though, is the fact that he thinks that I would pull any punches or show mercy to him because of his weakened state. It’s like a slap in the face.

Second of all, he’s been giving us this lecture for almost a decade now, and I don’t believe him anymore. Every time I see him he claims that this is it, we’ll never see each other again, but three months later I’m back in the car driving down to his house. He’s a fucking highlander or something. I’m going to be making this trip for the rest of my life. There can be only one.

After that, my Grandfather started talking about how old he was. Then he told us that this was a good birthday, and that he had enjoyed his 80th as well, so maybe eights were good luck for him. Then, he pointed out that he couldn’t remember anything anymore. I suggested that if he wouldn’t remember, we could just all tell him that it was his 88th birthday again next year. Then I asked him how old he would like to be next year.

"Some babies only live 3 days! Women are made of ribs! I can't eat ribs because I have diabetes! How did you people get in my house? Where am I? TIGER UPPERCUT!!!

“However old the Lord wants me to be!” he said while choking back tears.

And just like that, it was on.

“Some babies only live three days!” he said through tears.

The next forty minutes was rambling stories followed by non-sequiturs followed by religious goofiness.

To his credit, it wasn’t as mean as usual, but it was plenty crazy.

We would never clone a human, because it was too complicated. The idea of cloning was just to ridiculous. He immediately followed that up by pointing out that God had made man out of dirt and women out of ribs.

People were smoking pot on 4/20 because society doesn’t care anymore what people do.

The Lord was great, whether I believed it or not.

Teaching was what people did when they wanted to take the easy path instead of entering a more difficult, competitive field.

The assholes at the DMV refused to renew his license just because he came in with a walker and failed the eye exam the first time.

After a solid three hour tearful soliloquy, it was finally time to go home.

I said my goodbyes, ran to the van and spent another hour and a half driving home.

If that is what being old is like, I’m killing myself before it gets to that point.

Good day.