My Grandma Dora lived to be 97 years old. As she got older she split her living arrangements between her daughters. Mom and Dad’s house from spring to fall in Chicago and the winter months at my Aunt Dood’s house in Arizona.
She tended to make my mom nuts.
Every time she came to town she’d complain about her pocketbook. “It’s got all these pockets and compartments,” she said. “Look at this darn thing. Everything gets lost in here.”
Mom would let out a heavy, deliberate sigh about this ongoing pocketbook saga, but before long we’d pile in the car to go to Sears for Grandma to look for a new one. Mom would wander off and my sisters and I would help Gram in the handbag department. She’d look at all of them, open them up, try them out and say, “No, not this one.” Sometimes she’d poke her cane at one of the bottom ones and say, “Honey, grab that one. I think we might have a winner there.”
But we never had a winner.
After looking at every single one we would leave Sears empty-handed and then go to Kresge’s for an ice cream cone before heading home.
Another few weeks would go by and Gram would say at dinner, “Why don’t we go to Sears tonight and look at pocketbooks? I need a new one.”
“For crying out loud, Mom, you’ve been looking for a purse for twenty years,” is what her daughter had to say about that.
Recently, I told Mallory that I was going to the mall to look for a t-shirt dress. “They’re on sale at the Loft and look pretty cute online. Maybe this time I’ll find what I want.”
To which my daughter replied, “Geez, Mom, I think you spend every summer looking for the perfect tshirt dress.”
I have.
I do.
All this time I’ve been channeling Gram.
For crying out loud………….
