“Tomorrow, if we go get rubber gloves – I’ll pay for them – I can clean your stove. Not that it’s not – you know what I mean!”
“Are these Tupperware clean or dirty, sweetheart?”
“[After seeing the contestant who custom-makes prosthetic limbs for people who have lost their limbs] What a nice thing to do. They say they can do it with those 3D printers now.”
“No, I’ll do it! Just tell me where to put it away.”
“Oh, my gosh, look at that. You’re holding yourself by just your arms!”
“Am I interrupting you too much?” (She wasn’t.)
“Oh, hot dog!”
“Uh-oh. He’s got to be exhausted.”
“No, he’s not going to make it – oh, he did make it!”
“Now what? He’s got to do something else?”
“There’s a woman! Oh, women do this? I didn’t know they let women do this!”
“Oh, his clothes are so baggy.”
“Is the cat near you? Do you suppose he got outside? Your window is wide open. Well, he’s somewhere.”
“Oh, my gosh.”
“Look at his muscles!”
“Oh, he thinks you’re going to feed him again. That cat’s like a dog, when it comes to food.”
“Oh. Oh, this is something else again. Careful. Right there!”
“Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, you can’t get a good grip that way.”
[Image via]
Tags: american ninja warrior, family, grandmas, television
“This is something else again” is all I ever say during ANW.
Aww, grandma.
GRANDMAS. I am always here for grandma #content, as my grandma is one of the best parts of my internet experience. She is 94 and loves facebook but doesn’t understand 3/4 of the things I or my friends (who have added her, because she is amazing) talk about. So my sister has taken to posting “granslations” so that she can understand things better, like the intro to Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills that she posted yesterday.
Thank you, grandmas.
I miss my grandma so, so much. She would have gotten such a kick out of the internet.
Me too, and I always think about how much she would have loved online shopping. She had terrible back pain and couldn’t get around too well, but she LOVED shopping. Nanny would have cleaned out Amazon.
Also, when I was little and she babysat me, we would always clean my mom’s stove. Nanas! They worry about kitchen cleanliness!
Considering the damage my grandmother could do with a credit card and a TV shopping channel, I am a little glad she never figured out how to internet. A little. Her hoard of unopened HSN boxes was, I am informed, quite a sight to behold. All her treasures purchased not for herself, but designated lovingly for each member of her family, to be meted out after her passing. She’d call me and tell me about them sometimes, the earrings with fake gemstones glued on crookedly, the fancy commemorative plates, and admonish me of her intentions: These are for you. You will have them. Don’t forget!
Have them, I do not. I know she wanted it to be so, but either she did not inform her executor or said person didn’t care, and I never wrote down what she’d told me she wanted me to have. I got a tacky wall clock and her mother’s silver instead. But I do keep the memory of my sister describing Gram’s hoard spilling out her bedroom and down the hall, three stacks for the cousins, a stack each for my sister and I, brightly colored boxes stuffed into brown paper bags, most with shipping labels still intact even after a decade or more.
I miss you, Grandma.
“Look at his muscles!”
Yep, pretty much the only thing I say during ANW.
“He’s got to do something else?” is pretty much how I feel about ANW so yeah, Grandmother, I am right there with you.
More grandma posts!
I miss my grandmas so much. This is perfect. I welcome any future grandma content here at the toast dot com.
I am also all out of grandmas (she said flippantly, but :((( ) and second this heartily.
I’m all out of grandparents altogether. Sniffle.
I’m in this club too. Maybe someone has a spare they can loan out on occasion?
Me too! What’s cool is that other people’s grandparents don’t even really notice when you start grandkidding at them. Just pick a few you like and hug them a lot!
My last grandparent standing spent some years in an assisted living facility, and I will tell you, MANY of those lovely people will gladly let you grandkid them.
*hugs* to everybody else in the no more grandparents club 🙁
I am in this club and I would like to sign up for extra grandparents content
This is a truth fact, and I know this because I actually had something like four or five grandmas, if you include great aunts, my cousins’ grandma from their other side, and my mom’s best friend’s mom with whom I shared a birthday.
My grandfather would be totally up for this. He likes to talk and has lots of good stories (like when he wrestled a panther that one time, or when he got arrested with Noam Chomsky at an MLA conference).
Could you possibly elaborate on the panther?
I think I may have told this before on the Toast, so my apologies to anyone who read it before, but it is one of my favorite family stories.
This was back in the ’60s, when my family was living in a rural suburb of upstate NY. My grandfather was coming home from the bar late at night (perhaps the most relevant part of this story), and claims he saw a panther near their house. His idea was that he was somehow going to get it into their basement to take a picture of it, because otherwise no one would believe him. He tried to wrestle it into the house, but it didn’t take kindly to this, and basically scratched the hell out him. He went into the house to get cleaned up, passed out and hit his head on the sink, and had to call in sick the next day to his teaching job due to a panther attack. He said that his boss initially didn’t believe him (!), but then saw some item in the local paper about a panther escaping from a zoo and realized it was true.
I cannot verify how much of this actually happened, but my grandmother (a very straightforward and honest person) verified at least the part about him being scratched up and bleeding when he came in. (My mom also said it was a smaller bobcat when he started telling this story years ago…)
(This is my second-favorite family story, after the time my mom burned my grandma’s eyebrows off while teaching her how to smoke a bong).
a) That is an amazing story
b) I choose to believe your grandad marched into the dark with his sleeves rolled up, muttering ‘no dang cat’s going to make a liar of me!’
Would also like to join the no-more-grandparents-and-miss-them club. One of my bestie’s grandfathers greeted me recently with a hug and a “how’s my girl?” and I durn near cried.
Oh my god this reminded me of a wrong number call I got on my cell phone a couple years ago — when I answered this kindly old man’s voice said “hi [not my name], it’s your grandfather!” and I about burst into tears. Oof this thread, I may need a break.
Same here. I have one grandfather left but he lives in another country. Loved this article and am also here for grandma content
dot NET, thank you
dotted net:
My gosh, what an error! Dot net indeed. *is ashamed*
the-toast.com: it’s .net!
Thank you. This made me miss my grandma so much but in such a happy, smiley way.
In my head, your grandmother sounds like Harvey Fierstein.
“Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, you can’t get a good grip that way.”
Followed, I suspect by, “Oh, no. Oh, no. Stalling out at 15′ on the invisible ladder? You’re doomed, son.”
Nanas! Last week, I learnt that Ben Kingsley based his character from Sexy Beast on his grandma. Eek.
That’s absolutely terrifying on so many levels.
Aaaaaaaaaaaa
This knowledge makes me so happy and I do not know why.
So much grandma goodness! My grandmother will visit and insist on doing my dishes no matter how I try to dissuade her.
I am sick, and on Saturday I spent the entire day laid out on the couch watching an ANW marathon on a random cable channel. God, it would have been SO much better if my grandma had been there, making adorable comments and cleaning things and etc.
Is it time for The Toast to create Grandma Magazine? I’d read every issue cover to cover in honor of my amazing grandmothers. One of whom just had a stroke and isn’t able to communicate well at all right now, but I can picture her in my head saying every line here.
You beat me to this suggestion by exactly two minutes, but I second it heartily.
SNACKS
Do you want one?
YES.
My grandma is so old now (104!) that she can’t really do things for me anymore, but she will still save her cookie from lunch the day before so she can offer it to me when I visit. <3 grandmas.
HOW did that anecdote make me so sad and so happy all at once?? Grandmas!
One of my favorite memories of my Jewish grandma (who was, of course, always trying to feed us) was from her last days when she was in a hospice. The hospice staff were trying to get her to eat a little something, and she told them she didn’t really want anything, but could they get “some soup for my grandchildren?”
My great grandma is now 101 but only went into a nursing home at 98, and before that she would always bake at least 3 kinds of cookies for us every time we came to visit. Grandmas love cookies.
(One of my other grandmas doesn’t cook much but she would always buy giant Kit-Kat bars instead.)
When my grandma found out I was on a shortbread kick, she cooked like, eight million different recipes to find the one I liked the best so she could make it for me on a regular basis and now I’m going to go under my desk and sob a bit too.
brb, just have to crawl under my desk and sob for a minute
Is your grandma from Bedford Falls?
Let’s bring “Hot dog!” back, it’s a fun thing to say.
I lost my remaining grandmother a few months ago, and this is giving me a lot of feelings. I think there is a particular kind of enthusiasm that only grandmas can perfectly encapsulate.
“Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, you can’t get a good grip that way.”
My favorite part of American Ninja Warrior is how EVERYONE becomes and expert on ninja warrior obstacles by the end.
“Where are your Ls!!! He’s lost his Ls. It’s all over now!” – Me as I watch ANW while eating chips on the couch
After watching a marathon on Saturday, I am like 90% sure I could finish the course despite having no training or upper body strength?
a good/terrible idea is to play ANW as a drinking game. you can make your own rules but “drink every time someone says ‘grip strength'” 100% has to be one of them. & maybe the only one.
Drink whenever Anwar’s MIND is BLOWN by the ATHLETICISM THAT IS ON DISPLAY HERE!
I Skyped with my 94-year-old Canadian granny before my wedding at the beginning of the month, and my now-wife and I said hello, and she said, “Who’s getting married?” (She is losing some memory ability).
“We are, granny,” I said, pointing at myself and my fiancee.
“Oh, well that’s just great!” she said.
Then I said, “how are you?”
And she goes, “Oh I’m fine with it all!”, meaning two women marrying each other.
Amazing.
Awww! My Grandma was lost enough by my wedding that she heartily congratulated the best man several times (matching outfits), but it’s so nice they were around for it.
Kind of makes that whole “from a different time” argument fall pretty damned flat.
Listen, I love the adorably silly ANW commentators “especially Akbar!” But I would pay for premium service that that had darling grandma commentary throughout.
Though in all seriousness, why haven’t they made Kacy Catanzaro a commentator yet!!! She would be so good. I don’t care if it’s a conflict of interest for her to participate and do commentary. Make it happen ANW!
They should just do a rotating third commentator every week, and have it be a different grandma every time.
I would love this SO much. In fact, I’d love it for basically any kind of sports event.
This was exactly the appeal of Ron Santo, who used to do the color commentary for the Cubs radio broadcasts. I miss him. 🙁
Kacy would make an amazing commentator, IMO.
Re: Grandmas
I feel that the toast might appreciate this Grandma story.
Grandma uses the internet to the degree that she can follow me around on it sometimes but never comments on anything. Apparently, I made a joke somewhere about “golden basins in Deuteronomy” and the bible being a slow read or something…anyway a few weeks later I got a letter in the mail that had a great number of pleasantries and then said “P.S There are no golden basins in Deuteronomy. Maybe you are thinking of Exodus or Leviticus? Deuteronomy is one of my favorite books, maybe you should re-read it! 🙂 ”
and that is the story of how I got biblical knowledge burned via snail mail quilt stationary
truly the coldest of all possible burns
Damn, grandma!
Haha! That sounds like something my grandma would do. She was on Facebook and consequently found out when my brother broke up with his girlfriend before my mother did. My grandma asked my mother that she saw he’d gone back to “single” on Facebook and if he was okay.
my favorite part of this story is the quilt stationary
ANW makes me miss Nagano from the OG Ninja Warrior series so hard. Also Hang Glider Man.
Nagano!!! My dad still complains about the time Meeuwenburg slapped Nagano on the back and messed up his mojo.
“Oh. Oh, this is something else again.” is both my response to ANW and also life in general
This was SO CHARMING. I read it all in my grandma’s voice.
My grandmothers are not like this. People who have pleasant grandparent relationships, your comments are alien and bizarre to me.
I had one good set and one really bad set. So I can relate to you and relate to all the heartfelt sentiment in the rest of the thread.
I was not particularly sorry when my abusive grandfather died – the hardest part was navigating all of the heartfelt sympathy from people who had good relationships with their grandfathers and wanted to comfort me.
Same. I know my grandparents do love us and they do try, but they are definitely not the warm and cuddly types that everyone is discussing here. More the passive-aggressive and judgmental types.
My maternal grandma – Nana Bev – died when I was 8. We lived in a different city so I only have one clear memory of her, although it’s a happy one. My mum tells me she was an elegant lady who loved the beach and adored her grandkids, so I think she would’ve been an A+ grandma. She was sad that none of her four children named a grandkid after her, so my mother named our dog Beverly.
My paternal grandma is still alive but nobody from that side of the family (except my Dad because he is excellent) has spoken to me since I I told my Dad that my uncle had been sexually abusing me. Therefore, as far as I’m concerned they all died 15 years ago and my mum’s family is the only extended family I have.
I had one good set and one really bad set. So I can relate to you and relate to all the heartfelt sentiment in the rest of the thread.
I was not particularly sorry when my abusive grandfather died – the hardest part was navigating all of the heartfelt sympathy from people who had good relationships with their grandfathers and wanted to comfort me.
Kacy would make an amazing commentator, IMO.
my favorite part of this story is the quilt stationary
Man, for someone who has had not-the-best experience with actual grandmas, I am totally delighted by the idea of grandmas.