Playing cards with Grandma Eckman, part two

Everything seemed to be very exciting at first. My parents went to a party, and our babysitter for the evening was our great-grandmother. Although we were respectively age nine, six and four, my siblings and I had never had the honor of Grandma Eckman staying with us. It was a special occasion, and although she was sometimes stern, we were excited. Mom even dressed us up a little. Grandma Eckman dressed up, too.

Once our parents left, we pulled Grandma Eckman into our playroom to show her our elaborate creations. My younger sister Missy had designed a world with her Barbie dolls, and my older brother Jeff and I had created a Matchbox cars domain.

Her response was not as expected. Instead of being excited, she was distressed at what she termed a mess and commanded us to put the toys away.

I wanted her to know that our intention was only to show her our creativity and started to protest, but she continued without hearing me. “You can’t possibly be playing with all these toys.”

Missy was holding a new doll, her once vivid excitement transformed into a mass of tears.

For a moment, we all just stood there, but Grandma would have none of that either.

“Let’s get busy,” she said, clapping her hands a few times, “and then meet me in the kitchen in ten minutes. Then she left us, three miserable children, to put away our excitement and pride, because for all we knew, it didn’t serve her purpose.

Ten minutes later, as if she was watching the clock, she called from the other end of the house, “How are you coming along?”

I confess that we weren’t working that hard at it. After her rejection of our play world, we sort of lost interest in spending any time with Grandma Eckman and delayed the clean up in order to finish by bedtime.

“Just fine, Grandma,” Jeff responded.

“Let’s step it up,” she said. “I’m waiting for you.”

To be continued.