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When my Grandma died a couple of years ago, my little sister called me up and asked if I had any stories to add to the eulogy she was writing. I reminded her of this old chestnut and we laughed so much on the phone that both of us were choking and crying at the same time. Perhaps not befitting behaviour in the wake of a death in the family, but you can’t overlook a hearty gut laugh in this life.
Picture the scene: four kids aged twelve to seventeen being looked after by Grandma while the parents are away. As is the case with most Grandmas, there was way too much food being prepared. We were all sat at dinner where we were expected to eat more than our fair share, which if I’m completely honest, never tasted quite right, never tasted like our Mum’s cooking.
The four of us sat there, trying to behave. When Grandma got up to fetch yet more food from the stove, my little sister took the opportunity to remove a boiled potato from her plate and slip it to one of the dogs.
Our two dogs were greedy bastard hounds who thought nothing of plundering rubbish bins all up the street whenever they escaped, and they were always to be found near the dinner table hoping for some unneeded extra morcel to come their way. One of the dogs took the potato from my sister’s hand, and then, inexplicably, let it roll back out of his mouth onto her palm. This was the only time I would ever see him refuse anything to eat. My sister panicked before swiftly placing the potato back in the bowl on the table just before Grandma turned around from the stove.
“Now, who’s for more potatoes?” she asked, sitting herself down. The four of us said in unison, “No thanks, Grandma,” and then watched in horror as she reached over and started to help herself. As we watched in silence, she took the rejected potato, glistening with dog saliva, and put it on her plate before tucking back into her dinner, oblivious.
During the next couple of minutes none of us dared look at each other. We simply stared at our plates and tried to behave normally as each of us died laughing inside. The rest of the meal was painful to say the least, and it was only after we had cleared away and escaped upstairs that we rolled around laughing, much as I am doing now, as I do every time I tell this story.
Although this story has long been one of my absolute favourites and has entered into family legend, my Mum only heard of it when Grandma died. We are currently working on our family coat of arms and will most certainly be including a potato, resplendent and shiny with dog saliva.
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