"From my grandmother, I got ten dollars. This is the same ten dollars she has given me every Christmas since 1979. And every year she says the same thing. "Go buy yourself something nice!" It is important to note my grandmother is a zillionaire who sleeps on a bed made of money. So I took that ten dollars, went to a bar with my friends, and bought a Long Island Iced Tea." ~ Dan Renzi

Relating

I was really tickled tonight when I was reading Dan's blog and I saw that he has a cheap skate granny like me. We get fifteen dollars at Xmas, sometimes ten on a birthday but don't count on it. We use to get twenty at Christmas but that stopped about three years ago I have no idea why.

Background

My grandmother was a compulsive spender/cleaner her whole married life. Her empty house is still brimming over with knick knacks and bricka brack she amassed during her marriage. She was always the type of person who was impressed with material things. The more she had the more she wanted people to see it and envy her. She really believed people were jealous of her things. When I was a little girl going to her house was an exercise in self control. My brothers and I would take a seat on the coach and that’s where were would stay unless invited into her small kitchen. If you went to the kitchen or the bathroom it was an excuse to look at the things that lined the walls and ask, "Oh is this new Grand mom?"

Dressed to the nines with hair and nails done my grandmother rarely worked in her adult life. She wasn't the type of grandmother that you could hang out with, or sleep overnight with, or take trips with. She never left her home except to shop with her daughter. She wasn't the type who ever shopped for her grandchildren. She never just picked us up something for the heck of it. We knew never ever to ask for anything from her. I guess it was because we were taught that asking people for anything meant that you needed them and you should have too much pride to need anyone.

My grandmother never came to our house when we were kids. Never. My father would pack myself and my two younger brothers up and take us to see her and my Grandfather every Saturday. They never once attended any of our sports events or theatre productions. It's like we were brought around them at their convenience and for their amusement- not ours. As a sickly child in the hospital calling for her grandmother, I was told by my mother that Grand mother wasn’t coming to the hospital because it was too depressing for her.

Epilogue

Now she is 90+ and she spends her days in a tiny room watching the same game shows over and over. She is healthy with the exception of poor vision and hearing. Her precious things sit in an empty deteriorating house. The mice love the heat in the winter and enjoy the merriment of chewing through her many collections of owls, teddies, and dolls. No one comes to see her and no one takes her out. I don't think she would go anyway because that would be like accepting charity in her mind.

A Grand daughter’s Lesson

I'm not a wealthy Aunt, but I'm a fun Aunt. I'm at the dance recitals, swim lessons and Brownies. I take the girls shopping, I come home with treats. They run through the house like they own the place because in my mind they do anyway. I know what my nieces like and don't like and I expose them to new things so that they have much to love in life. I don't give them money, I shop for gifts and I always will until they ask me to do otherwise. I'm determined to not be what I knew as a kid. I put effort into these relationships because if the day ever comes that I see 90 (heaven forbid) I will have something money can't buy.

Message to Dan Renzi- I loved the Xmas card thank you ever so much for thinking of me! Kisses*