The Farting Chair
Did you just blush?
I know I am and I know the story behind the blush.
Growing up there was a table with four chairs. This table sat modestly beside the only bathroom in the house, and conveniently next to the kitchen television, which rested on a radiator.
On the average Saturday or Sunday, one would find a roast beef cooking in the oven and an oil and vinegar laden tossed salad, perfected by the hands of a sweet red-headed granny who loved Elvis, football, and gambling.
This was my grandmother's home.
This was also the setting of many weekends in my preteen years.
Now I can honestly say that I didn't like to be there most weekends. That was true.
As an adult, however, I can now see that those humble and difficult weekends made such an impact on who I have become.
And I am grateful.
This sweet red-head was petite and wore glasses. She liked her hair curled and, even when she was not leaving her house, she always seemed to make sure it was well styled. Often she would wear leopard blouses and black shorts.
And she smoked.
Like.
A.
Chimney.
Many evenings, after feeding four grumbling children (my brother, sister, self, and our cousin who spent many weekends with us), two grown men (my father and his cousin who was very much like another son to my granny), and herself, we would sit around this table (well, four of us would...or we moved to the larger table in the other room...but that table saw more Dominoes and this demure table saw more of our favorite game): 500 RUMMY.
My granny's name was Emma. What a beautiful name.
When she passed, and even before, she had one grand and one great-grand child named after her.
Since she has passed, there was an addition of an Emily and, should my Big Strong Man and I ever have a girl, an Emmaline.
What a beautiful legacy she has left us.
Granny Emma was a real player: she was in this for the long-run and adamantly kept score with her number two pencil, and the knife she used to sharpen it.
Of course, she would be puffing on her cigarettes unmercifully the entire game through.
And then there was her chair.
Her farting chair.
I don't remember too many details now.
I can remember one particular day, though. Granny Emma sat in her "special" chair, I to her left, my dad to my left, and maybe a fourth player to his; maybe my aunt who pronounced her "threes" like "trees". Many weekends she was found here as well.
My chair was the one next to the bathroom.
I was slouched in my chair, shirt pulled-up over my nose and most likely pouting about the lack of oxygen I was receiving.
Of course, this fell on deaf ears.
Every weekend, deaf ears.
Both my father and granny smoked.
I think Jappo (my father's cousin) probably did as well.
Yes, my sweet sister clearly remembers that he did. She also remembers that he would call it his "cheesecake", a.k.a., his desert.
Our father would later tease her after Jappo passed about his "going to have his cheesecake now".
Our father apparently adopted this as his own- although I have yet to hear it!
This heavy smoking was not something a child of 12 had any influence over or say in.
They smoked.
I sat.
Everyone survived. (Although, I promise you, I did not think I would!)
Back to the game.
Although she was capable of being loud and tough when it came to us eating our roast beef and being thankful, and she had nothing good to say about baseball players who "scratch and spit", her personality this day was not hard.
...I think that was because she may have been losing.
Whatever the case, she was behind and about to set us straight.
This is when she did it.
Like a teenage boy trying to impress his equally gross teenage friends.
She leaned to her side, lifting her leg just a little, and she farted.
I kid you not. She farted and she won the game.
Every time.
Yes, if memory serves me correctly. Every time she got to farting, she won 500 Rummy.
And, oh yeah, she had some words to say about baseball, but football? Football was her kind of game!
I wish she had been alive to have had met my Big Strong Man. I think she would have appreciated his football knowledge.
I also wish she had lived to know what Fantasy Football is.
Years later, when I was in my early twenties, I returned home from CA after being away for four years.
I arrived on a Tuesday, and that very Saturday ended up being my granny Emma's last day on Earth.
The day she died, my sister, self, and one of our aunt's remained with her in her hospital room all day. Granny could not speak.
She would not eat.
I think she may have sipped some Sprite, but it was through a straw, and only when the nurses assisted her. Other family and friends came and went as their schedules permitted.
For those of us there, we would tell stories and sigh over the shared memories.
And the one memory I will keep forever?
The farting chair.
-----
P.s. Granny Emma, for all that fussing I did over your roast beef...all of the stuffing it in the potted flowers and soda cans, feeding it to your dog, and flushing it down the toilet. I am sorry.
When I was pregnant with Zep., I think I ate an Arby's roast beef sandwich every day for that first trimester. And if I could see you here on earth for one moment more, I would tell you that I love you and I would be so very delighted to have some of your roast beef again.
with love,
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