Grandma Good, Coo-Coo

As a John McCain supporter, Grandma Slump is up in arms.

She's usually on the couch watching Animal Planet. She loves the Crocodile Hunter, and I haven't had the heart to tell her about the accident. She just thinks the same crocs keep getting in trouble and needing his assistance. Steve has a lot of close calls, and it's not good for Grandma's heart to see him in such danger all the time, but along with the danger she gets a good deal of pleasure, so I don't like to deny her.

But one day the episode was on with the croc missing half his face, either the upper or lower plate. I think he's known as Old Crikey. And that episode is especially frightening, to the point of I had to immediately apply oxygen. And that's just for me; Grandma's in a complete swoon. So somehow I have to get the remote and turn the channel, and what do I turn to, one of these religious shows, Pastor Rod Parsley!

He's on TV, vigorously strutting across the stage, wiping his brow as his preaching has everyone worked up, himself included. With this, Grandma is mesmerized. Those eyes that so frequently stare blankly ahead are focused with about a quarter's worth of intensity at this shamanic exhorter of the masses. He's in touch with all that's divine, and for Grandma, alternating as she does between Heaven and Earth (see post, Our First Contradiction), that means something. Sweet Beulah Land is in sight, but with the amount of brow-mopping going on, the temperature seems to be very hot this day.

Now, Grandma knows how to add 2 + 2, especially in lucid moments. And she knows what's happening -- religiously, politically, socially, in all the various ways. Heh heh, just the other day she was pointing out to me some interesting facts about Hitler being not so much an evil despot bent on conquering the world and eradicating the Jews but a servant of God, to her way of thinking accomplishing in a roundabout way the greater purpose of sending the Jews back to the Promised Land. At first, I glanced down at her weekly pill caddy to make sure there weren't still pills in it from last year. But when I saw that look of determination on her face, lucidity marring her usual blank stare, I knew something was up. She got that from that other preacher, John Hagee! And now this Parsley's got her all worked up about the Muslims, something about the Muslims joining Madelyn Murray O'Hair to outlaw Christian music on the radio.

Add to that, then, her support of John McCain for president. Then McCain gets the endorsement of these various preachers, and Grandma Slump's in Heaven, even when she's not. It's suddenly all I can do to hide the checkbook, because she not only wants to send in her weekly "love gift" to these men of God, now she wants to send money to McCain. Since I can't stand McCain or any of the Republicans, I want to do all I can to fight this impulse. This isn't Grandma Slump! This is the Anti-Soros! Must calm down. Must talk her out of it. What ideas are there, though? I've got nothing!

Then suddenly it happens. John McCain rescues me! He repudiates these pastors' endorsements. And all I have to do now is rock Grandma's world with the news. John McCain has turned his back on the divine. John McCain isn't "one of us" anymore. John McCain has "gone secular," sought his share of the inheritance (their endorsement), and now has gone to a foreign land (repudiating them) to waste his substance (any potential Grandma Slump contributions) in riotous living (secularism, humanism, Democratic talking points).

With that accomplished, I had to sit there and soothe her ruffled feelings. "There, there, Grandma good, coo-coo, sleep, sweet relief, go back to Heaven, let me keep the remote..." And I am thankfully spared the extra expense of contributions to McCain. And when it comes to inheritances, that helps me here on the home front with the bottom line.