Surviving Hurricane Grandma: Redux

"Oh, dear, what is wrong with your hair?" my grandma said in her faint English accent to my mother. "It looks like a rat's nest!"

And thus began another semi-annual visit from the maternal grandparents. It seems like every time they come to town, the dysfunction seems to grow exponentially. And I can always expect my grandma taking over the television like a media-hungry fascist because she just needs to watch C.S.I. at ear-splitting levels and my grandpa drunkenly trying to teach me sudoku. It was definitely going to be yet another memorable visit.

As they got all their suitcases inside the house and unleashed all of their miscellaneous food stuffs like generic brand salsa and millions of juice boxes onto our unsuspecting kitchen, my family braced themselves for three full days of God knows what before they went to sunny Arizona for the winter.

After Grandma finally settled down and complained about her swollen ankles for 10 minutes too many, she asked where dinner was, expecting to be fed on the spot. Well, judging from all of the food they dragged in, I assumed it was here.

"Well, I was expecting pizza, or a calzone," she said as she scowled at my mother, who apparently didn't get the memo.

I looked at Grandpa, who just shrugged and reached for the vodka bottle he stashed in my grandma's walker. Nice. At least he came prepared.

And thus began the search for Hawaiian style pizza and the elusive calzone with sausage, peperroni and green peppers. My mom and I noted their order and ran to her red SUV of sanctuary, giving each other a look of relief to escape the almost realistic sounding gunshots coming from C.S.I.

"Remind me never to do that to you when I get older," my mom said. "Otherwise, just put a pillow over my face and put me out of my misery."

We drove aimlessly around Elk Grove, trying to remember the nearest pizza place that made tailor-made calzones. We drove up to Lampost Pizza and looked at the menu which seemed to be in fine print and saw no calzones. Great. We loaded back into the car and arrived at Pizza Guys. We asked the girl behind the counter, who had face full of makeup about five shades too dark and three layers too thick, if calzones were available. She looked around clueless as if a calzone was a thing of myth and legend.

We finally consulted 411 and went to Pizza Bell, nestled discreetly in Old Elk Grove. Our pizza prayers had been answered, but only about 40 minutes too late as we were reminded by an angry phone call from Grandma.

"I have to eat before seven, or my blood sugar will be low! Where are you getting pizza from, Italy?"

I guess she was going to either slip into a diabetic coma or turn into a pumpkin. Or both.

We finally came back with the bounty of gooey, cheesy goodness to the elation of my grandparents and brother (who had the daunting task of entertaining them while we were away). After we took in a sweet 15 minutes of silence, Grandma was ready for a round of shopping at T.J. Maxx. I looked at her plate and only about a quarter of the calzone had disappeared. All of that driving, endless nagging, and dropping eight bucks for a glorified pastry that she barely touched. Talk about frustration. Not that I could let Grandma know anyway, unless I had a death wish.

We all looked at each other and shook our heads in unison. Grandpa chugged the rest of his vodka down, preparing himself for the perilous journey ahead. The feeling of defeat was definitely looming in the air.

Well, on the bright side, at least I could take solace that my grandma didn't ask if I was a lesbian this time.