Monday, May 23, 2022

Old Bitches Want PLEASANT TV: a (Partial) Tale of Two Grandmas

 I’ve turned into my grandma. But mot the sweet one I was named after. No, I’ve turned into the grandma I actually take after. Solitaire-playing scowly owl-faced big-ass gunny-sack-tits-under-her-housecoat grandma.

The grandma I was named after decorated cakes, played piano for schoolchildren, and fried chicken at midnight for friends in need of borrowing Grandpa’s tools. I’ve got her middle name, but I inherited my actual bitch personality from the other grandma, the one who chain-smoked and went fishing (and drinking) alone, catching big fish and being pulled over waterfalls … reeling them in without her cigarette even getting wet.

But that was before I knew her. She’d aged out of fishing and drinking by the time I knew her. Playing cards in her old-lady apartment, collecting adorable knick-knacks my daddy bought her: birds, kitty-cat, Hummel figurines …. detailed little treasures I wish I could picture more clearly now.

This grouchy loner grandma I took after had tastes that didn’t line up with her bitchy personality; sure she read thick bestselling historical fiction by James Michener, but she also devoured romance novels. Thin cranked-out sexless “Harlequin Presents” titles. Her crackly voice sounded the most joyful (and least bitchy) when she called daddy by his little boy nickname … and somehow managed to make it sound like a guilt trip for him at the same time.

My sweet grandma I was named after got her silver-white hair set in bubbly rolls and wore housecoats that were soft cozy pink velour with embroidered pastel flowers appliquéd above her breasts. But the grandma I take after had peppered pewter hair chopped off mid-neck, sticking straight out like a greasy bird’s tail feathers. The drab powder-blue fabric of her housecoats was thin, like cheap sheets with skeletal white flowers reverse-tattooed by some cold kind of soldering iron freeze-burning all the blue out of the cloth leaving behind decorations of white scars serving as chalky ribbons denoting time served as a matron: the chest candy of an old woman.

I’ve turned into this grandma I remember barking at me in the care center where she went to slowly die of lung cancer, complaining about how there wasn’t anything good to watch on TV. When I suggested a riveting program to her, she acted like I’d suggested flaying her flakey skin with pus-coated razor blades for fun. “WHY IN THE HELL WOULD I WANT TO WATCH THAT DEPRESSING SHIT?!? CAN’T THEY MAKE ANYTHING ***NICE*** ANYMORE?!? EVERYTHING HAS TO BE SO VIOLENT!!!”

This from the same woman my dad and his twin sister would recall yanking Daddy out of bed as a child in the middle of the night just to beat him. When they asked her WHY she said just because she felt like it.

Fortunately I do not have any kids to test my worst genetic tendencies. What I do have though is a growing resentment of alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the super-dramatic crisis-riddled conflict-heavy tears-to-the-eyes hyper-realistic “binge-worthy” “entertainment” we have to choose from. I’m so fucking sick of it, and how hard it is to just find something PLEASANT to watch. I want to relax, not be sucked into the tortured lives of imaginary characters just SUFFERING and being threatened and enduring frightening soul-sucking depressing PROBLEM after ATTACK after LOSS after INJURY after NAIL-BITING CONFRONTATION in ULTRA HD 4K SUPERMAX DETAIL. I don’t want to be on the edge of my seat. I want to watch something funny with someone familiar who wants me to have sweet dreams, not nightmares.

I am not one who appreciates the segregation of people from different age groups, but this desire for “pleasant” entertainment instead of stress-inducing media is, to me, something older people crave more than younger folks. And the bitch-ass irony of we old ladies reacting with such unhinged violent fervent cunty anger to even the mere suggestion of another UNPLEASANTLY upsetting tv show or movie … well … it’s pretty fucking funny. I DON’T WANT TO WATCH THAT NASTY DISQUIETING SHIT YOU DUMBASS MOTHERFUCKER!!! I WANT SOMETHING FULL OF SWEET SMILES AND SUNSHINE FOR GOD’S SAKE!!!! Isn't my preference OBVIOUS?!? Can't  you tell by my PERSONALITY?