Like Taking Candy From a Baby

Or, How to Estrange Your Granddaughter in One Easy Step

Christmas with the Family was uncharacteristically calm and (dare I say?) pleasant this year. The only points worth mentioning for your amusement were a minor dust-up over the scheduling of events on Christmas Eve, and that Dad ate a stinkbug (he thought it was a peanut). Are we maturing? Finding a rut? Getting along better? Who can tell. But far be it from Rosie to leave her loyal fans without a story, and therefore I offer for you this Tale Of Interest.

*********************************

My sister received her Bachelor’s degree on December 11, for which we are obviously quite proud of her, and my father flew out to Colorado to be present as Sister walked the stage and received her diploma. He arrived on Friday and he, Sister, Mom, and my five-year old Niece (henceforth known as “Isabelle” for the purposes of direct referral) went out to dinner at a nice restaurant near his hotel. Dinner went reasonably well, despite some awkwardness from his posturing and boasting, and his efforts to pressure Mom into driving 100+ miles out of her way to drop Sister off at his house for the holidays in order to spare him the “inconvenience” of driving up to BWI (where they were flying in) to collect Sister and Niece himself.

The next day, Sister was at the convention center early to prepare for the ceremony, leaving Dad, Mom, and Niece to occupy themselves in the meantime. While sitting in the stands and waiting for the graduation to get organized, Mom thought out loud, “I wonder if there’s enough time to get some flowers for Isabelle to give to Sister?” On cue, Dad took up the charge: “I’ll do it!” Niece joined him, and off they went into the hallways. Some time later, they returned triumphant: Dad bearing a lovely bouquet of red roses, and Niece proudly bearing her very own single red rose. “She cajoled me into buying it for her,” Dad explained. A very sweet gesture, I think you’ll agree.

The ceremony begins, and in due course, Sister walks the stage, performs the complicated hand-jive that graduation officials insist on to effect the simultaneous handshake/diploma-exchange, and rejoins the family at the ceremony’s end. Isabelle runs over to Sister, and Dad, chest puffed out, marches over with the flowers in hand. Isabelle reaches for the bouquet to give to her mommy, but Dad stops her.

“No, no, Isabelle. Since *I* bought the flowers, *I’m* going to give them to her.”

The End.