HUMOR

Shocking Things My Sweet Little Grandmother Said

I didn’t just pick my potty mouth up off the ground

“Come back inside, you’ll freeze your twat off,” my Mema would say to us.

I’m nearly positive she didn’t have any idea what a twat was. Her name was Bonnie Grace, and she lived up to it. Innocent, quiet, kind. She was married at 18 and divorced at 21 and never had sex again. She blushed if we took her to a movie with any sexual activity in it. So hollering the word “twat” just didn’t fit with her persona. And yet she said it every time we went outside in the cold.

Merriam-Webster defines twat as “slang, vulgar + offensive: a woman’s sexual organs.” I really wish I’d asked her what she thought it meant.

“Close the door Arkansawyers. Were you born in a barn?” she’d call as we ran out the back door of her farmhouse, slamming the screen and leaving the door open.

We grew up in Texas, and as far as I know, none of our relatives were from Arkansas. So I have to assume it was a derogatory word in her lexicon. I also have to think she knew the meaning, since the first use of that word to describe someone from Arkansas was documented in 1851 in J.M. Morphis’ History of Texas. Although many people from Arkansas consider themselves Arkansawyers, it could be argued that a Texan coined it to make fun of them. Since she only used it in reference to leaving doors open, I’m guessing she equated it with the term hillbilly.

Donald Harrington, a writer and native son of Arkansas said, “Arkansawyers are simply stubborn, earthy, shrewd individualists with a zero tolerance for bullshit.” Sounds a lot like Texas to me, so I don’t see a distinction. I don’t know if she meant it as an insult to residents of Arkansas or not. Again, I regret I never asked.

On the other hand, she told us a story late in her life that showed a sneakier, even funnier, intentional side of herself. She was staying with her mother-in-law, who was overly demanding and critical. The woman had my grandmother, Grace, and another daughter-in-law, Noreen, doing all the cleaning and cooking, and running constant errands, including bringing her a bedpan whenever she needed to go. They then had to clean it and have it ready for the next command performance.

They were both complaining about it one day when my sweet, little grandmother-to-be, Grace, got a twinkle in her eye and said, “I have an idea.”

They were really just teenagers, after all, so it appealed to the tiny spark of rebellion they were able to muster. The next time the mother-in-law used the bedpan, they emptied and cleaned it and then threw it down the well. When Mother-in-law later yelled for someone to bring the bedpan, they told her with wide-eyed innocence they couldn’t find it anywhere.

Telling us the story from her nursing home she got the giggles about it as if she were still that 18 year old. Her eyes sparkled, and she blushed a little. The whole performance made me wonder if she indeed had always known the meaning of the word twat.

If you’d like to make my grandmother smile on you from above, you can support my work by buying me a Ko-fi.