The Grandma Equation

My sister yells at me sometimes because she says I get too impatient with our grandmother. I yell at her about the same thing. I lecture her about the importance of just saying “no” when it comes to some of our grandmother’s more ridiculous demands. Joanna handles my grandmother a little differently than I do though. Like, right now, Joanna is currently going to school for graphic design, and interning at a graphic design firm. My grandmother will call asking for a favor of some kind, and Joanna will behave the exact same way each and every time. Basically, she will huff and puff, and look extremely put out, but eventually, and very begrudgingly do whatever it was she was asked to do. I tell her this will just end up building resentment and she should just say no when she can’t do something. She tells me to go fuck myself.
The reason for our differences, I am told, is because Joanna had a much different “grandma” experience than I did. Her memories are of staying up late on Saturday nights, watching 227 and Saturday Night Live. I don’t think my grandmother ever let me stay up late to watch SNL. I vividly remember once, when both me and my sister were sleeping over, she let Joanna watch it, and not me. I was in the bedroom across the hall, listening longingly to Jennifer Aniston’s monologue.
I’m not trying to paint myself as a little Cinderella here. I realize that by the time I came around, my grandmother was a little older, and probably just didn’t feel like trying to please a bratty little kid. I guess in a really odd way, this frees me from the pull of feeling guilty if I am simply unable to do something for my grandmother. Of course, if I can do something for her, I will. Basically, it frees me from all the huffing and puffing that Joanna does.
My grandmother and I actually have an all right relationship when it comes down to it. The formulas go like this:
ME + GRANNY=GOOD
JOANNA + GRANNY=GOOD
MY MOTHER + ME + GRANNY=GOOD +/- TENSION
JOANNA + ME + GRANNY=RAGE+ANNOYANCE+HURT FEELINGS(^2)
It occurs to me that, a lot of the times, it is almost completely dependent on who you are with that will equal a good or bad time. If you are with somebody who will react to any aggravation you have with annoyance, then you are fucked. Joanna has a pretty short temper, and she will tell you that I have an anger problem, but when we aren’t together, visiting granny can be a pretty nice experience. For the record, I don’t have an anger problem. I am just one of those people out there who says things like “I’m gonna kill him” or “I’m gonna rip her head off in front of her children.” Good old facetious fun.
I don’t know why, but whenever Joanna and I go into my grandmother’s house together, I am reminded of an acting class I took. I remember the teacher; an impish, overzealous voice-over actor telling us the rules of blocking. He spent one class explaining how the way a person is positioned on stage can set the tone for the whole scene, and moreover, tells the audience which character has the power. According to him, if there are only two people in a scene, one of them always has to be more powerful than the other. I’m not sure of how this tactic would work in say, a production of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, but I never did take anything this man said seriously. What I do remember him saying that really stuck with me though, was that if a person in seated, and another one is standing, then the seated person is the one with the power. It didn’t make much sense to me then, but nowadays I am beginning to understand it. Whenever Joanna and I walk into our grandmother’s house, she is always seated. We are always standing there, waiting for her next command. I also notice that when you sit down with her to have an actual conversation, the tension eases, and you start to see how silly it looks when a grown woman is standing in front of a little old one, screaming. I think this means that the power of mind over frustration lies with the person who is willing to take a seat.
-Kat