Myrtle and the Whoopee Cushion

SO the other day I Blog surfing and I stumbled onto Rachelle's blog and she had this great idea to idea to write an enrty about your life every Monday. Well I thought that this was a great idea, but I was way too busy Monday. So today finally the Masonator is on hour two of his nap and I finally have time to blog (of course he could wake at anytime, so lets just cross our fingers and hope that our luck holds).

I have been wanting to write about one of my best childhood memories which isn't really one memory, but sort of a conglomerate of memories surroinding one person...My grandma Myrtle. Now I know what you are thinking 'Oh great another weepy story about somebody's grandma' but just listen, because my grandma really was pretty amazing. When I was about 7 or 8 my grandparents came to live with me my five brothers and sisters, my two parents, our two cats, one enormous dog, and one little parakeet. Needless to say we were a full house. My grandma had multiple sclerousis and could not walk, or even get out of bed. She lived with us for four years before she died and in that time I never heard her complain once, I mean it not ONCE. I did however hear her tell many jokes. She and I hung out all the time...um, maybe that was becuase she was literally a captive audience to my jabber. I really did talk alot as a child, and I think everyone else eventually got tired of it, but grandma was pretty darn patient with me and listened to my stories. My cousins would come to visit all the time in those days (its a wonder our house didn't burst at the seams) and we would put on elaborate shows for our grandma. We just knew that she really loved them and felt so proud of ourselves for doing her such a service, we didn't know then that it was really she who was doing us the service, by making us feel valued and talented when she clapped at the end of the show. My gradma was amazing, but there is one that stick out to me today that I want to write about. It was on her birthday...Like always all of the aunts and uncles and cousins came to visit and brought with them cards and presents and cake and such, but when my cousin Sara gave my grandma her gift the party really got rolling. From Sara my grandma unwrapped a brand new fully functional Whoopee Cushion. Yes you read that right to my grandmother was given a Whoopee Cushion. If I remember right we had to show her how it worked, at its first successful deflation my grandma laughed heartily, and then asked that it be reinflated and carefully directed us where in the room to place it. I remember that it was placed under the cushion in the orange chair and that the next person to walk in the room was my uncle Reid. We were all very excited when we saw that he was going to sit in the very chair where the joke was planted, we all waited expectantly, but nothing happened...we waited and waited and finally Reid shifted his weighted and the ongoing conversation was brought to a screeching hault by the loud expulsion of air from the whoopee cushion. The only way to describe what happened next is to paint you a picture of what I remember about that next few moments. Just imagine my grandma unable to even lift herself out of bed, laughing so hard that she had tears coming out of her eyes. Laughing so hard that we all worried that she might truly hurt herself. Needless to say the whoopee cushoin was a hit. And my grandma was a truly amazing woman. I am so gald that got so much time to know her.