Grandma's Filing Cabinet

Humor: Grandma's Filing CabinetsI've posted two blogs today that seem, upon rereading them, kind of serious and/or depressing, so I will post one more, hopefully with a lighter touch.

My mother, She-Who-Controlled-with-Guilt-and-Cooking, was a retired executive secretary who kept immaculate financial records and a very tidy house. Her personal symbol was a hummingbird, because she liked the fact that the tiny creature seemed to work nonstop, just like her.

"Just like me" was the greatest compliment anyone could get from her. She was good at everything she took on --- well, she wrote pretty shitty poetry, in my opinion, but everybody else seemed to like it, or maybe they were just too scared to hell her what they thought.

In any case, she was one of those mothers who clipped newspapers and magazines and saved them to send to her children and grandchildren. She would save up a bunch and then stuff them in an envelope and send it to someone and you never knew what the hell it meant or you were supposed to do about them.

I am not talking just saving a few clippings and attaching them to a refrigerator with a magnet. She had Dad build her a huge walk-in closet, where she kept three filing cabinets. One drawer was filled with old tax records dating back to the 1930s. The other drawers were crowded with file folders, each overflowing with clippings and categorized by topics. This woman was serious about her clippings.

So when my son Patrick came to visit Grandma with his first boyfriend in tow, she greeted the couple with hugs and then said, "Wait here. I've got something for you."

She went into her closet, pulled out a file drawer, muttering unintelligible sounds and grunts, and then came out and handed Patrick and the boyfriend a yellowed clipping from Cosmopolitan magazine.

"Read this and get back to me," she said, and went off to make lunch.

They looked at the clipping. The article was titled:

"How to Catch a Man with Food, How to Keep a Man with Food, How to Get Rid of a Man with Food."

Mother had been holding on to it since 1962, during the Kennedy Adminsitration. She was just waiting for the right person to give it to.