Trip Advisors

I know now that it was a cruel thing to do. But as eleven-year-old boys, my twin brother Robbie and I thought it was a hoot. We didn’t mean any harm; it’s just that Grandma Dillon was such a pain. She’d been living with us for almost two years so Mom could go back to work. At first, it was okay, but then she started making rules. Clean your plates. Say your prayers. Do this, do that. She kept up a steady stream that Mom and Dad simply ignored. I guess they were too busy with their own lives. Besides, they figured that twin boys should be able to handle an eighty-four-year-old woman with rapidly diminishing mental competence.

The worst was when Grandma repeatedly said we needed to wear clean underwear, which we did most days anyway, especially after our Saturday night bath. Our underwear was no business of hers.

Then she took up with Mrs. Tingley next door. I guess a woman who always wore bedroom slippers, so she could go to bed at any time of the day or night. Robbie said, “She’s a little dippy,” and twirled a finger beside his head.

Grandma would invite Mrs. Tingley over every morning. I think it was just to annoy Robbie and me because we liked to sit on the porch with our friends and play Monopoly with school out for the summer. How can you do that with these two old women carrying on shouting to each other because neither one of them could hear worth a darn?

That’s when we came up with a plan. It was simple. We would send Grandma packing. Just for a little while, maybe twenty minutes or so.

Robbie and I looked so much alike that Mom made us wear different colored tee shirts. So why didn’t she just put a label on us?

One day, after another underwear reminder, Robbie said this, “We tell Grandma that she’s going on a trip. Tell her to pack a few things. Then, I’ll walk her to the corner and tell her to wait for the bus.”

“What bus?”

“Never mind.”

“There is no bus.”

“That’s the point. Now listen to me.”

Robbie waited until our parents had gone to work, then he told Grandma about her trip. She looked puzzled like she was trying to remember where she had wanted to go. Robbie dug an old rug-side satchel out of the attic and said, “Pack a few things, Gram, and I’ll walk you to the bus stop.” Grandma wanted to say goodbye to Mrs. Tingley. That wasn’t part of the plan, but that couldn’t hurt, so I ran next door to get Mrs. T.

I took their picture with Mom’s old Polaroid One Step, then took Mrs. T. home while Robbie went with Grandma and left her standing at the corner waiting for a bus. I ran into the house and changed my shirt. Now I looked like Robbie and raced through the backyards to the corner. Grandma was standing at the curb, looking up and down for the bus. I came up behind her and said, “Grandma, welcome back. I hope you had a nice trip. It’s good to see you again. How were things in the city?” I kept up a steady patter as I led Grandma back to the house. Her nose was all scrunched up, and she kept resetting her glasses as if that would help her remember. Robbie and I figured that’ll teach her to stay out of our underwear business. When she’d start on that, we’d just ask her questions about her trip. Her nose would scrunch up again, and her eyes got squinty and looked far away.

Robbie’s gone now, more than two years. I’m alone, and I miss him. I think back to the careless, carefree days of our youth. The games we played—the mischief we did and felt terrible for some cruelty. I still have that photo of Grandma and Mrs. T. The prank we played that day is still fresh in my mind. The picture has faded some, but I keep it pressed between the leaves of Gideon’s Bible here on my bedside table. I often look at it as I wait for the attendant to come to my room. She’s always dressed in pink scrubs and enters with a smiling face and a happy greeting as she gets ready to change my Depends.