Geriatric Chili-ing

Chili chocolate and a soft voice are a lethal combination. My voice was too quiet when I warned her that the dark chili chocolate I had brought along was pretty darn H O T and so she took some and started chomping down. I watched in awe as she took a bite, swallowed, took another bite... and then my granny spat. Grunted, gasped, leaned forward and SPAT the choccie right out on the table. 86 years old with the table-manners of a 3 year old, I ask you. Some people's children!

But it didn't end there! Granny's eyes started to water and she wouldn't stop gasping. Now, being the spice expert I am not, I knew that gulping water would definitely make it worse. So I advised bread. Granny made a desperate dash for the kitchen, but in her chili-induced tearful-blindness, she couldn't see the bread drawer and fumbled hopelessly. Gallantly, I, the death-by-chocolate annihilator, opened the drawer for her and she shoved some dry bread into her mouth, now also heaving with little, intermittent, scratchy-throat coughs. And I couldn't bloody stop laughing. Not loudly, of course. I giggled like a tipsy teenager at the sight of my nearly immobilized grandmother on spicy chocolate. Luckily, she was too preoccupied with her bread-eating, gasping for air, coughing and throat clearing to really pay attention to my amusement. When the bread wasn't working, I suggested beer.

"Yes, I think so!"

she croaked.
So I fed my Gran some beer and followed her from kitchen to living-room and back again as she paced around, waiting for the symptoms to lesson. Eventually she calmed down and returned to her normal colouring and the streaming tears stopped... ja, well, perhaps I shouldn't consider making my family visits more frequent after all? It only took me 28 hours to almost kill my grandma.

Granny on the lookout!

My granny is 86 years old, but behaves as if she were not a day over 50.
It's been 3 years since my grandfather died - the man she had a child with at age 19 and was married to for almost 65 years. I haven't seen my gran in a while and in the 36 hours I spent with her, she talked about the possibility of meeting someone 4 times! 4 divided by 36= 9. Every 9 hours or so, she listed her options, as she sees them:

a) meet someone on holiday in Italy
b) move into a pensioner's home and find 'him' there
c) speak to men, when out shopping in town or on the bus

No matter how she denies it - " I don't really care, it either happens, or it doesn't" - my granny is DYING for it... I had no idea. In the last 3 years she's travelled all over the globe with her sister. From Vienna to New York, to Jo'burg and Warmbaths, to Italy and Switzerland and Prague and soon to be seen in France... I thought she was catching up, making up for lost time and having a blast. Turns out... what she really wants is another man! But she just freed herself from the shakles of a restrictive marriage and a husband who wouldn't let her do anything - why this obsession with wheretomeetthenextone?

Oh ladies... if the man-hunting ain't over at 86, what hope do us 30-somethings have of finding peace?!