I'm Not Pregnant

After Tutu died, Poppie began spending summers living with my parents in their suburb, Frankfort, outside of Chicago. My long term relationship had ended shortly after Tutu died and so I also found myself spending summer, fall, winter, spring...and then another summer, fall, winter and spring living with my parents in their suburb outside of Chicago. I went from living a very cosmo life in downtown Chicago, complete with extravagant dinner parties with fascinating people, concerts and runs along the lakeshore to dinners with my parents and Poppie and a bottle of Charles Shaw wine from Trader Joe's (the best, according to my father), community concerts in "downtown" Frankfort on Sunday afternoon featuring the area's best harmonica player and runs along suburban streets, where my mother's friends usually stopped their cars to ask me mid-jog if I "needed a ride home?"

"You and I kid, we are in the same boat," Poppie told me when he noticed that I was in fact living with my parents, and not just spending the weekend crying and eating their food.

Beside the 60 year age difference, and the fact that they had been married 55 years, which trumped my 4 year relationship, I suppose we were. He had lost his wife and I my girfriend, or "roommate," as she was known to him.

"It's hard to live with someone," he said, wisdom which I was always tricked into thinking was intended to soothe me, such as grandfathers, by definition, are supposed to do with their grandchildren. But Poppie had a magical way of making it about him. "Tutu was a great roommate too, but she snored, so we didn't share a bed for 30 years, unless we had sex, and then we still didn't share a bed after. I am sure you know I have taken the drug Viagra."

Part of the expectation of living with my folks was that we would all take turns entertaining Poppie. Most men of his age are completely content with sitting in front of a television all day watching baseball. Poppie was content with sitting in front of a television all day watching baseball as long as he had an audience to distribute his thoughts to like a firehose at the same time. These thoughts could range from pronouncements about "colored people" to anecdotes about his difficult life growing up and eating squirrels to whether his toenail had a fungus and could you look. My father easily settled into the TV watching role, while my Mother took Poppie to the library or health club with her, where he sat in a chair and watched her swim laps and told her what she was doing wrong with her freestyle stroke. I in turn was Poppie Miscellenous. Going to the gas station, "Take Poppie!" Going to Starbucks, "Don't forget Poppie!" Going to a doctor's appointment, "Poppie can sit in the waiting room!" Poppie soon became Flat Stanley.

Because I genuinely loved the man, and knew that this was a unique and hopefully never to be repeated time in my life, i.e. living at age 28 with my parents and 80 year old grandfather, I occasionally planned outings I knew both Poppie and I would enjoy together. We went to mutually revered places like Kohl's, where I bought bras, and he, socks, and my bras. And Michael's craft store, which I liked because they had a 50% sale on frames, and he liked because his name was Michael.

Once, I took Poppie to the Chicago Bears training camp. Both being avid fans of the team, I considered this not only a fun time for us both, but one that I would someday look back on with sepia-toned nostolgia as I remembered us watching men crush one another as we sat together on the bleachers sharing an ice cream.

Poppie embraced the special outing. "The Bears will stink this year, why should I go watch them stink before it matters on national television?" But off we went, because my mother needed Poppie out of the house so she could spend time with my father sans one of the 300 baseball games that played in the house daily.

The special grandfather/granddaughter Werthers moment was quickly dashed when Poppie decided that there were too many people in attendance to see a professional football team and made a beeline for the exit after 20 minutes, purposefully or accidentally--we'll never know-- knocking over a pregnant woman who stood in his "way" with his cane as he strod towards the parking lot, while leaving me to explain to the pregnant woman's husband that my grandfather was senile and dying.

A few weeks later, I had to go to the grocery store. At the time, I was on a major health kick, (since over) and working out 3 hours a day, protein shakes, vitamins and looking awesome. I had read that prenatal vitamins were better for hair (Poppie had blessed his lineage with thin hair) and so I intended to head to Jewel, the local grocery store, and buy myself some prenatal vitamins.

"Take Poppie with you!" my mother cried out from her bedroom after I told her I was running out for a bit. I could have been going to freebase heroin, but after 2 months of Poppie All The Time, she could care less.

Poppie and I headed to Jewel, where I dropped my prenatal vitamins into the cart, along with a quart of chocolate Moosetracks ice cream and some carrots, which Poppie wanted to buy because they improved eyesight according to him and he was concerned we were all going blind because we complained about seeing the TV, which was turned to face him directly, rendering only a peripheral view for the rest of us. Blind it is.

A few days later, I arrived home after a late night at work to find my parents sitting alone in the family room. Poppie was nowhere to be seen and the TV wasn't on and so I briefly wondered if I was at the right house.

"What's up--where's Poppie?" I asked them.

"Poppie is in his room, but we need to talk to you," my father replied.

"Poppie has told us that you are pregnant," my mother said. While my mother supports my sexuality, I believe there was a small part of her hoping that I had randomly been knocked up by a man the day my grandfather told my parents that I was pregnant, after spying me buy prenatal vitamins for the thin hair he gave us all.