Grandma’s Ghost Disappointed That I’m Not As Much Of A Slut As I Could Be
Yeah, it happened. I’ve had this old chest for years from Grandma ever since she died, but I never got around to opening it because I’ve been so busy with my career, cultivating long-lasting friendships, and just being an overall amazing and well-rounded adult. It’s been almost ten years since she passed, and last Tuesday night I finally had enough free time from my incredibly busy big girl schedule to finally figure out what was in this box. Turns out, it was just some assorted old books and photos. Oh yeah, and also the ghost of my grandma.
“Woah! Grandma, is that you?” I said when the ghostly figure of my grandmother popped out. She looked mad, but then again she was always kinda mad. That’s what having seven kids due to Catholicism will do to someone.
“Of course it’s me! Don’t be a dum dum,” she said back. That’s what she used to call my dad, but now I guess the torch of dum-dum has been passed along to me. That’s pretty rude of her considering I was just promoted at my really cool email job, but that’s okay she never really figured out email while she was still alive. “I didn’t think I was going to be stuffed in the box THIS long. What have you been doing with your life that’s so important that you’re not even gonna help your Grandma out of haunting her own grandkids?”
This was, of course, a trap. There’s no way I could have known that Grandma was planning on haunting me. She also, like I just said, doesn’t really understand email or marketing tools or Sunday morning brunch with the gals, so I didn’t have a good excuse. She clearly had something she desperately wanted to say to me or she wouldn’t have subjected her soul to stick around this mortal world for this long. So, I asked my grandma if she had anything to tell me.
She answered back with a question of her own. “So how old are you now? 30, right?”
“Around there, yeah,” I replied.
“And are you married yet?”
“Oh, no. Not yet.”
“Thank goodness,” she said, which was kind of a surprise for me. She was always a big crier at my cousins’ weddings. “Smart girls like you should never get married. Men will just suck the life out of you!” Now this was some shade about Grandpa that I wasn’t going to pry into.
“But you have a boyfriend, right?”
The answer was no. “A girlfriend?” Okay, I didn’t know Grandma got down like that. But the answer was also no.
“Not even a lover? A whirlwind week-long romance on a Euro trip? You know, I did a foreign exchange trip to Italy in high school a year before I met your grandpa and I met this absolute hunk of a man named Lorenzo. Oh, he treated me so good! We were just drinking wine and he had me licking olive oil and parmesan cheese right off of that beautiful chest of his…” she trailed off with a sigh. I didn’t want to ruin her mood, but had to tell her that I did not have quite that spicy of a time when I did my study abroad in Italy. I didn’t even kiss anyone while I was there.
“Well what good are you even for?!” she said, exasperated. “You’re at the peak, so young and still full of life. I didn’t push out seven kids for them to push out a bunch of prudes!”
Grandma was right, what good am I even for? I wanted to give her a good answer, but I couldn’t let her know about Covid-19, or about how my student loan debt made me live with my parents for years, or that Trump beat Hillary Clinton. I couldn’t spare her any more emotional anguish. She already died after a good, long life and she didn’t need to know about the current state of the world she left behind. And now I know that I’m just making everything worse by not hoeing to my full potential. I just said what any young person would say: I’m just way too busy working on myself and building out my future.
“Boring!” Grandma always cut to the chase. “Even when I was married to your grandpa and busy with the kids we always found time to get freaky. The whole neighborhood would all get together every third Thursday of the month and throw our keys into the bowl. Oh, I always had the hots for Howard down the road and the day we were paired up he made me scream in a way I never did before.” She got down.
I tried explaining to her that there’s just too much for a young professional like me to handle. Why would I spend all this time going on dates with people who don’t actually want to pursue a real romantic relationship with me? I still have to do my daily workout routine and figure out how to incorporate silken tofu into more recipes to increase my protein intake—I’m also on a health journey right now.
Grandma cut me off. “All of that sounds absolutely dreadful. Whatever happened to a good old wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am? Smoking down five cigarettes afterwards? Who cares if you’re not going to live with them as long as they know how to eat a little kitty?” She pointed to my crotch. “That thing’s gonna shrivel up to nothing if you don’t start using it!”
She was always able to leave me speechless.
“I would say that I’m going to haunt you until you start having a good time,” she continued, “but I’m already tired of haunting you. I’ve seen enough! Get on that Tinder or whatever you people call it and get out there and start smooching!”
Then in a flash, the ghost of my grandma disappeared into the air. I was now alone with my box of old letters and photos—which turned out to mostly be scandalous material from Grandma and Grandpa’s swinger days. What a player!
As I looked at the photos of my young grandmother’s incredible breasts, I realized that she was right. Grandma had all this game even when the world was terrible for women, and I now have access to birth control and no religious affiliations. I could go absolutely feral on the fine people of this neighborhood. I need to go out and find me a piece of meat, stat…for Grandma’s sake!