Monday, January 23, 2006

Sex and the Old People's Home in the City

My son The Dancer goes with me every Sunday to visit his grandma at the old people's home. Grandma is enjoying his visits very much and they have taken to frame their encounters in a question-and-answer format. Since her English is very poor, they speak in French and my mother is making it her life mission to correct and improve his French.

Grandson has been asking Grandma a lot of questions about her life in Vietnam and specifically about her youth. Grandma in turn has been telling him about the family, about our rubber trees and coffee plantations. She told Grandson about how, when we were younger, I used to tie a string around my younger brother's (his uncle) neck, make him crawl on all fours and pull him around like a dog on a leash. When Grandma found us walking around that way, she made me remove the leash but then, I tied the string around his wrist instead and when I pulled on the string, he went spat! facedown on the floor. Last week, Grandson asked Grandma about her first date with Grandpa and she was deeply embarrassed. She told him that they were hanging out first with their groups of friends, then later on, they gradually went out on dates by themselves. Then she quickly talked about something else.

This week, he went back to their dating period and she was hemming and hawing, trying to change the subject. Then he asked: «What sort of things did you do with Grandpa when you were with him?». Grandma's face turned beet red and she glared at him with bulging eyes. I thought she was going to punch him in the face. I bursted out laughing. Realizing his gaffe, Grandson stuttered: «No, no, I mean, uh... what did you guys do for fun?» [or in his broken French: «Non, non, je veux dire, euh, qu'est-ce que tu faisais avec Grand Père pour le plaisir?»]. I was laughing so hard I was peeing in my pants. Finally, Grandma answered: «We went to the theatre. Why? What did you expect?» «Rien, rien, grandmère!» said the contrite Grandson, while his mother was rolling on the floor laughing.

This morning, I stopped laughing. It's more like «Eew!»

No comments: