HUMOR | NOT FICTION AT ALL
My Day With Grandma Smillew
Hot air balloon rides, emus and the elderly
Grandma Smillew was no ordinary grandma. From the moment she pulled up to Olney station in a hot air balloon, I knew she was an eccentric woman. It wasn’t my desired choice of rendezvous location, but she insisted. And if there’s one thing I’ve grown to know about Grandma Smillew in our time together, it’s that she’s a fierce defender of her friends and a stunningly good mixed martial arts fighter for a woman older than the Titanic and telephones.
From the prowling addicts that she flying body slammed upon her emergence from the balloon, teacup still in hand, to the FBI agents she drop kicked and arm barred when they attempted to detain us for flying in restricted airspace, there was no denying that she was an obstreperous woman.
Once we were let out of FBI holding, (they went easy on us, as Grandma Smillew made an excellent pot of green tea for the overworked government employees), we decided on an afternoon at the waterpark. After a short-lived altercation with the Dorney Park attendees that cruelly claimed that “the park doesn’t offer hot air balloon parking,” we were off to the races, the two park workers bound, defeated, and, for some reason, gagged. Grandma Smillew was a kind woman, but I didn’t want to get on her bad side.
If I’d learned anything from Smillew Rahcuef’s last hospital stay and ensuing facial reconstruction surgery, it was that Grandma Smillew could cut in front of me in line without objection. Hell, I even sat there with a smile on my face as she violently devoured my Dippin’ Dots.
Then, in a stunning change of pace, after a Karate-laced, sugar-fueled altercation with a couple of waterslide workers, she taught me about the merits of SEO marketing. How about that? A jack of all trades, she was.
After a few attempted apprehensions by park staff, we willfully left the waterpark on our own accord. We boarded the hot air balloon again, which the park staff had kindly allowed her to park by the carousel after Grandma Smillew gave the ride operator a particularly pointed look and pounded a fist to her palm forbiddingly. With the hot air balloon in motion again, we were off to the tropics. This, of course, wasn’t my idea, but Grandma Smillew had a persuasive quality about her.
As our hot air balloon neared Hawaii, (it had impressively good range for a hot air balloon (and this was due in no small part to Grandma Smillew’s advanced degree in engineering from Harvard)), I meekly suggested we visit my friend Alec Zarenkiewicz. And to my surprise, she actually obliged.
As Alec and I caught up on the serene shores of Kauai, Grandma Smillew won a hula hooping contest, learned the native Hawaiian language in its entirety, and fought a Galapagos shark with her bare hands.
After the three of us had wined and dined on Kauai’s finest poke bowl made from the freshly caught carnivore of the deep, we made our departure toward Australia.
“Are you sure this is good for international travel?” asked Alec, a look of ambivalence on his face as he examined the shoddily built balloon.
But with the maniacal glare of a crack-addled MacGyver, Grandma Smillew convinced Alec to tag along. He concealed his trepidation as he boarded the makeshift balloon.
From there, with little more than a days-long series of travel tunes from Grandma Smillew’s boombox, we had arrived in the Outback. What Edward Swafford was doing living in a hut in the middle of the desert, betwixt kangaroos and dingos, was unclear, but if the three of us hadn’t arrived when we did, he would surely have become emu food. “I haven’t been here since 1866!” remarked Grandma Smillew with a deep, relaxed sigh, paying no mind to the army of ten foot tall birds bearing down on Edward’s humble abode.
Grandma Smillew hunted down a saltwater crocodile for food. Then Edward insisted — in his most overbearing Australian accent — that we “cook it on the barbie.” What a barbie was wasn’t yet clear, but it soon became evident that the Hollywood box office hit hadn’t yet made its way to this forsaken corner of the Australian wilderness.
As the afternoon wore on, we exchanged tales of love, loss and laughter. Though we’d come from disparate corners of the world, we had formed a bond that would last a lifetime.