Stuck in the Swamp

A/N: I wrote this my senior year of high school for my English AP class. I haven't improved it since I turned it in so parts may not be up to my usual standard and could be re-written.

Stuck in the Swamp

First of all it is to be noted that if my Granny knew I was writing this she’d probably give me a good Cajun spanking. Or worse attempt to chase me out of her wood paneled cabin, spatula in hand. Or she would cry dotting her beady, barely there blue eyes with a crumbled up tissue underneath the hugest glasses the world has ever seen. I often a time find myself wondering what is she trying to hide behind those things. A giant mole? No, I think those are just really big freckles. Old age? She is after all pushing eighty. Antarctica? Maybe. However, the truth must be told and I am the only person in my family, besides my cynical mother (who is merely the daughter-in-law), to admit what an incorrigible, ignorant, old bat my grandmother is.

            Granny is a bit uncoordinated and moves at a zooming 5 miles per decade due to her knee replacement several years ago. She is literally a limping mold infested disease. She smells like musk, and her hair looks like something nested in it and then bred. It’s flat, too. Flatter than a pancake and about as short as her attention span. There is probably more grease in there than all the fast food restaurants in the United States. I believe she took John Travolta a little too seriously when he said, “Grease it up.” 

            One of the few things we have in common is grease. I liked to eat it at McDonald’s when she used to take me there after I got out early from school. Free food for her company was probably the only reason why I chose to spend forty-five minutes with her in a compact car when it should only take twenty. It was on one of these trips that I realized how absolutely different we are. We were talking about how picky I am when it comes to food.

“Ye’ eat red banes and rize?” she asked in her Cajun accent.

“No.” I responded and proceeded to tell her that my parents forced me to eat it once and I threw up.

“Do ye like crayfish?” First of all it is crawfish, but I silently kept that to myself.

“Yeah. I like most seafood. I just won’t peel it.” But Granny wasn’t satisfied with that reply.

“Ye like barl shrimp?” What in the universe was barrel shrimp? I sat there pondering.

“No,” I told her uncertainly, “I’ve never heard of it.” And like a dumb blonde I asked, “Is that some sort of species of shrimp?” I can’t recall what she said next; I was too busy thinking what a weirdo my grandmother was until a miracle was sent from God.

“You mean boiled shrimp, Granny?”

“Ya! Barl shrimp.”

“I eat boiled shrimp,” I said emphasizing the word in its entire syllabic context like I was talking to a two year old. Somehow the word earl (meaning oil) entered into the conversation. I then blocked the rest of that traumatic moment from my memory and looked for the nearest fast food joint simply to get out of the car.

Granny and I tend to spend most of our time together in cars. It is probably the only way my parents can make me stay in the same vicinity as her. Even when I visit her and Paw-Paw I go into the spare bedroom to watch TV within the first five minutes. Holding a conversation with her is like talking to a pig. The fact that she resembles one doesn’t help. So imagine what having an argument (or what she likes to call a “family discussion”) would be like. We got into one in the car on the way home from Olive Garden with my parents. It was about the death penalty, which seems like an intelligent subject but Granny always has a way of “dumbing things down.”

“It’s all those damn nigga’s! They the ones that trash tha citay.” Now would probably be the best time to mention that Granny is also a racist. “Tha all shad be shot! Thay wastin’ ma tax dollas.”

“Granny,” I proposed reasonably from the back seat, “did you know that it costs more money to kill somebody than it does to keep them in jail?”

“How d’ya know tha’? Ya keep ‘em in jail long ‘nough thay cost mo’!”

We continued in this same vane until we reached the Crescent City Connection. I had decided to shut my mouth and let Granny rant.

“Why back when I was yung I had ta…”

“What? Walk three miles uphill through sleet and rain in order to get to school,” I sarcastically completed her sentence in my mind.

The ironic thing about it was that I agreed with her. The death penalty should be instated and I had argued for nigh on half and hour just to spite her. Though at the time I told myself it was simply to make her better informed. Claudette Frederick Klumpp is stuck in the swamp with her Cajun Catholic roots and there is nothing more than I want to do but despise her for being brainless.

A/N 2: Thanks for reading.