Way to have flu shots, America (The Baby Files, Volume 1)

I originally intended to debut this post on Wednesday afternoon but this awful computer of mine went and frozed up on me, making me furious. After that I refused to write it out again that day and watch the game which led to my most recent post before this one, that is if it ever sees the light of day. So, again, I sat down Thursday afternoon to start it again and I got halfway though and the same thing happened. In the first edition of the second typing of the post I vowed to burn my house down if the computer froze again. It turns out that I'm a horrible liar cause I am typing this from the very house I threatened earlier. I promise you now though if this attempt also fails then I'm burning your house down. It's a win/win situation for everybody. Now onto the post.

Every other weekend I drive what feels like 4 million hours (50 minutes) to my grandmother's house to pick her up and take her back to our place (sometimes willingly, sometimes far from it). If you've never met her, my grandmother is a shrunken version of a shrunken Italian woman who happens to be more deaf than your common table or mountain. What makes this worse is the fact that she wears a hearing aid yet she still can't hear anything which leads me to believe that 12 hearing aids wouldn't even do the trick. This lack of one of the most important senses has led to hilarious miscommunications over the years that just keep on coming everytime we talk to her. Another thing you should know is that the name on her birth certificate is Baby Lentini because her parents couldn't think of a name on time. That's right, my grandmother's official name is Baby. What did her parents think was happening the previous 9 months before she was born? Not enough time I guess. Now that Baby has been dropped off back at her place I feel less guilty about writing about her now than I would if she was sitting in my living room staring at me all day like she does whenever she visits. So, after everytime she comes down for a while I'll post the hilights of here time here. I know at least one person who will be interested in these posts so no matter how much you dislike them I'm gonna keep writing these. I'm looking at you, PJ Brennan.

The Baby Files, Volume 1


Fordham's new point guard. 

I know I kinda said it before but you have to understand that it's very hard for my family to figure out where Baby gets the information she does because she can't hear a thing that anyone says to her. On the way down to my house this past Saturday we happened to be talking about flu shots - a HOTT topic with the elderly/scared-to-death-all-the-time community this season. My dad kept telling her that there are only a few flu shots available in the country. This didn't matter though becuase Baby continued to insist that her hero, Dr. Morris, had them even though we kept telling her that he never had them and never will, at least not this year. In fact, she went onto say that flu shots were "plentiful" and that "they're saying every member of the family should get them." She continued by saying that the problem wasn't that there weren't many to go around, but that they were so expensive and that's why people weren't getting their shots. Classic Baby. When we got home, I carried her bags in and was just about to bring them upstairs when she stopped me and asked what will end up being my favorite question of all time: "John, you don't happen to have a staple-gun, do ya?" A staple-gun? A staple-gun?? Now that's random. You can't make this stuff up, unless of course you're my grandmother who makes up everything she says. I think I broke her heart when I told her my staple-gun was being repaired.

Right before I drop her off back at her place we normally stop for a quick lunch at a little diner near her house called, The Robin Hood. Everytime we eat there she always says to me, "they make their fries good here, no grease." Well, not surprisingly, she said it again this most recent time. The problem is that they changed their fries within the last couple of months and now they're soooo greasy that I couldn't even get a good grip on the steering wheel the ride home. Yes, I ate the fries, but only becuase I had already broken her heart once this weekend. That's all for this edition of The Baby Files.

MY SOLUTION TO THE FLU SHOT SHORTAGE: I'm sure there's a lot of the Polio vaccine lying around somewhere. So, I propose that we just give everyone who can't get a flu shot the Polio vaccine but tell them that it's the flu shot. It would bring comfort to the old people, who are the only ones who really need it in the first place, plus if anyone is coming down with Polio, their problems are solved too. This needs to be done. I'll have my people get on this. Ladies and gentlemen, I just saved America. Maybe this will get me out of the draft.