It was a typical morning at our house.  At O’Dark-thirty the first alarm goes off and my 29 year old son stumbles through the house getting ready for work.  Since he is the first human to emerge from under the covers, he makes the coffee for us.  Next I hear Robert rousing about, and bury my head under a pillow so I don’t have to accept that it is morning and I need to get up and start the day as well.

Trying to not surrender to the sunrise, I burrow deep under my blankets.  That did not fare well for me, because my puppies assumed it was time to play hide-and-seek and I was the prey on their hunt.  Within 30 seconds of hunkering down I was bombarded with tiny nibbles and 12 furry little feet trampling all over me.  Little barks, saying “get up mom, we wanna go outside and play in the sticker bushes, pee all over your deck, and trample through what’s left of the garden before you feed us”.  I surrendered.  I was not in need of a canine bark-n-massage as they continued to throttle me with their paws, then pulling covers back and licking me relentlessly.

I headed to the kitchen for coffee then out the back door, wrapped in a blanket with the furry kids.  After everyone else had scurried off to work, I retreated inside for a refill of that awesome caffeinated joy, and there they were.  Staring back at me… fluffy, big, smelling delicious and riddled with mouth watering flavor.. BLUEBERRY MUFFINS!

Knowing they belonged to my son, who had purchased them the day before, and wanting one, I gave in to desire, and opened the package.  I sat down at the table and savored the first few bites, washing it down with my fresh cup of coffee.  My, my, nothing tasted so good at that moment like the wonderful blueberries as they slid down my throat.  I was in heaven.  Midway through I realized all the times I reminded my son about courtesy in the house when it comes to other peoples things, and that we should be polite and considerate and ask before taking, when he had eaten all of my favorite snacks without asking.  Guilt began to set in.

How could I do this, when I had just complained not long ago about him doing it to me?  That would be the pot definitely calling the kettle black!  So I came up with the only solution I could, and would play on his sense of humor.  A flying monkey came right in the back door when it was opened and stole it!  That’s my story and I am sticking to it!

I laughed to myself and recalled an incident in 2008.  My grandmother, who was 91, had been living with us nearly a month now and was who I give credit to for me acquiring my humorous side had done something quite similar.  She had a fancy for sweets, and just couldn’t resist filling her days with junk food whenever possible.  I, on the other hand, as her guardian, tried my best to limit her intake of pastries, cupcakes, cookies and candy until I could get her to focus on better nutrition.  I failed!

In her state of dementia, she had never lost her touch for humor.  I had gone in one chilly fall morning to wake her up, and she was burrowed with her head under her blankets hiding.  I reminded her that it was time to get a bath and have breakfast.  She said she was not hungry, and protested even after I offered her one of her favorite flavored breakfast pastries as bribery.  As soon as I pulled the covers back, I saw multitudes of yellow cake-like crumbs falling onto her and the floor.  Curious as to what was going on, I pulled the covers that were draped half over the side of the bed away and discovered why she was not interested in food.  There, on the floor was a Twinkie® box and a litter of wrappers strewn all over.  I said “Grandma, you ate the whole box”?  She laughed and replied, “Darryl crawled under my bed and did that”.  I laughed, because at that time Darryl was in his early 20’s and too big to fit under her bed and he also has hated Twinkies since he was 3.

I asked her if she was sure it was Darryl and not some imaginary friend hiding in her room.  To that she replied, “That’s my story and I am sticking to it”.

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