Bowl of Jello

“Is this the granddaughter who threw me under the bus?” Granny answered the phone after her date. Oh brother, I was in for it. “I don’t know where to begin or where to end,” she started, “His breath? The word putrid comes to mind.”

They sat at the sushi bar because it benefited Tim in two ways: 1) With the advantage of sitting next to her it made it easier to get some rubs and squeezes in. 2) He spent significant time in Asia so it gave him the opportunity to show off his knowledge. “He was callin’ all the shots with the sushi chef, tellin’ him how they slice and dice in Kyoto.” I would think that level of worldliness would be a turn on for my globetrotting Granny but unfortunately it was not. “I asked for brown rice on my roll, he told me that’s not how they do it in Asia. I don’t give a damn, that’s how I do it in South Florida,” she said.

“You were out for two hours-” I began before she cut me off.

“That’s right, and I had two dinners. He talked and talked and I thought what the hell? Might as well get my bang for my buck.” I love that about Granny, like me, she can eat with the best of them. “I mean kid, he only ordered one sushi boat. That’s ridiculous, everyone knows you need at least two.”

“He wanted to talk about was the ‘bowl of jello’ all night long,” she huffed.

I didn’t get it. Was this a sexual innuendo? “That’s his name for his grandson. He can’t stand the poor kid. Every time I tried to gloat about one of my gorgeous (I may have added the adjective) granddaughters it went straight back to the bowl of jello.”

By 8:00pm she told him she was tired and had to get home. “But you hate eating that early, you don’t get tired until at least midnight,” I pried.

“Kid, I was bullshitting. I played the old lady card because I didn’t want to be there anymore,” she confessed, “He walked me out to my car and I told him, ‘You’re a very talented conversationalist,’ and he was, ‘but ya gotta be easier on that kid, ya know simpatico?’”

Tim said he appreciated their chat and her advice on the matter. Before he could lean in for a kiss she prominently stuck her hand out for him to shake, “Let’s be friends,” she said.

He smiled and hugged her, “I’d like that. We should get dinner again sometime.”

“Next time I’ll try to only order one meal,” she giggled.

Granny loves biscottis, Anderson Cooper, and her grandkids more than anything in this world. It must have been tough for her to stomach a man trashing his own spawn through an entire meal. As we hung up the phone she said, “Ya know I’d never refer to you as a bowl of jello.”

“What if I really porked up though?” I asked

“Probably not, maybe as a joke, but I’d probably call ya cream pie or pudding face.”