Nana Rides the Pink Pony!
I’m secretly writing this article from my room. Not normal practice for me as a writer, unless I’m writing Santa my wish list, but my daughter has placed me on time-out for the rest of the day. It all started yesterday when my daughter, Chenoa, took her four-year-old daughter, Sephira, and me to the mall for Christmas shopping. Chenoa is 25, and so mature; so she thinks. She waits in Black Friday lines without complaint, can pass by the Orange Julius without whining she wants a smoothie, she even carries hand sanitizer in her handbag. She’s a total drag. I am 54, and I’m mature enough to know that it is far more fun to be immature. Nevertheless I try to be a good grandma when we go out, Chenoa just doesn’t understand, the situation isn’t always how it looks.
There was a carousel at this mall, and I being the wonderful Nana said I would take Sephira for a ride so Chenoa could go act adult somewhere else. I, with my impeccable taste, immediately picked out my pony. It was hot pink, with so much glitter it looked like a fairy threw up on it and it was posed in a frozen full sprint; too hot to trot. I pushed my way through a crowd of toddlers towards it, with Sephira under my arm in a football carry. I sat her down on the blue-and-black stallion aside me and began to mount my beautiful beast. Then I felt it, a little chubby hand grabbing a wad of fabric on the side of my leg and yanking. “Nana, that’s my pony, up please?” The audacity.
“No, that’s your horsey right there, this one is Nana’s.”
“No, that’s a boy horsey, Nana.”
“Look kid, I coulda left you behind to fight for your own horse, besieged by five- and six-year-olds, but I didn’t. You get the horse
you get.”
“But Nana, I wanna ride the pink pony!!!”
“Age before beauty, now beat it!”
Just then I felt a tug on my earlobe. I turned around and there was my mature daughter with a look on her face like I was too old to ride the carousel. I’m not too old, these kids are too young, they’ve got plenty of time to ride, I could be dead tomorrow. She didn’t see it that way.
***
I’m helping my mother write this article because she’s on punishment. I know what you’re thinking—who would put their mother on time-out? Ugh, the things she does, if you only knew! I can’t take her anywhere. I thought she could be good when we went to take my daughter for Santa photos at Walmart. Instead, while I’m reviewing the pictures for print I hear gasps of horror from behind me. I already knew but I looked anyway, hoping maybe there was another crazy old lady causing commotion. Sephira’s crying on the floor as her Nana has knocked her over to sit on Santa’s lap to say she wants a pink glittery pony for Christmas. Then she planted one right on Santa, and asked what he was doing after Christmas. I know it’s tough being 50 and single but come on!