I don’t know if my grandpa thought that he was funny, or if he intended to be rude. He, my cousin and her friend, and my mother made the 50-mile trip to Maryville to shop at Dollar Tree (everything’s $1!) and eat at the Joy Wok buffet (it had been too long since I’d had sushi).
My reason for wanting to shop at Dollar Tree was to get brand new books for $1 each. I picked up a biography of Elizabeth Taylor, a memoir by a White House doctor, and a book on Obama’s presidential campaign.
The buffet did not disappoint, and Grandpa paid for everyone. Up to that point, everything was fine.
When we got back to the vehicle, however, he said something that irked me. I flipped through my books. Grandpa saw the book by the White House doctor and said, “She (the doctor) should do away with Obama!” Which I took to mean that he thought the doctor should kill the president.
Commenting on the book about Obama’s campaign, Grandpa said that Obama was elected because “he told nothing but lies.”
I know that he made these comments to get a rise out of me, because he knows that I voted for Obama in both 2008 and 2012, and I am politically liberal.
His remarks reminded me of the numerous times he’s made fun of me for having attended Iowa State University. He thinks that the University of Iowa is a better school, though he attended neither ISU or U of I, or any college for that matter.
I complained to my mother about Grandpa’s comments. She told me that I “had better not start it,” and that I need to take my anxiety medication.
“I’m not the one starting it!” I said. “Why should I have to take the medication when it was Grandpa who “had started it”?
“I knew that you would act like this,” Mom said.
Why was I being blamed?
Official Blog of Dustin Hartley 