Surviving Hurricane Grandma

"Oh, dear, what is wrong with your hair?," she 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. But there's always the norm of 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 seemed like it was 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.

Once Grandma sat down (and complained about her ankles swelling for a good 10 minutes), she asked where dinner was. 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, peperoni 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 makeup about five shades too dark and three layers too thick, if they made calzones. 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 turn into a pumpkin in a diabetic coma.

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 a sweet 15 minutes of silence, Grandma was ready for a round of shopping at T.J. Maxx. We all looked at each other and shook our heads in unison.

We loaded up the SUV and packed my grandma's red scooter, which later in the parking lot was used as a means of near-suicide by her cutting in front of cars and putting her hand out expecting them to, well, actually stop. As my mom and grandma raided the jewelry counter, I sat with my grandpa near the front of the store who was falling asleep in his chair. I leaned against him, thinking that he had the right idea.

The night proceeded with modeling jewelry, loud commercials for pharmaceuticals and stories of Vietnam. Before we knew it, they were ready to call it a night.

Well, at least my grandma didn't ask if I was a lesbian again this time.