And Your Fortune Is No
I spent the weekend at my uncle’s house, and let me tell you, his grandkids had me convinced their grandfather was some kind of mind reader.
“Ask Paw Paw to take us to the store,” whispered the twenty one -year-old Keisha to her younger brother Marcus.
“No, YOU ask him,” Marcus shot back, shaking his head vigorously. “You know he’s gonna say no.”
“Okay, but watch—he’s gonna say no before I even finish asking,” Keisha predicted with the confidence of someone who’d clearly been through this before.
I watched from the couch as she tiptoed down the hallway like she was approaching a sleeping dragon. The floorboards creaked with each careful step. She raised her small fist and gave one tentative knock on Paw Paw’s bedroom door.
Before her knuckles could make contact for the second knock:
“NO!”
The voice very deep through the door with such authority that I nearly jumped out of the lazy boy.
“But Paw Paw—” Keisha started.
“NO!!”
Marcus looked at me with raised eyebrows that said, “Told you so.”
“Paw Paw, we just want—”
“Aye, aye, I said NO! And whatever you’re about to ask for after that, that’s a NO too!”
Keisha shuffled back to the living room, defeated but not surprised. “See? I told you he has superpowers or something.”
“Maybe he just knows y’all too well,” I suggested, trying not to laugh.
Just then, Paw Paw’s door opened and out walked this sixty-something-year-old man in house slippers and white T-shirt and jeans shorts, looking like he’d been expecting this exact conversation.
“Y’all want to go to the store to get some and get what? Where ya money cause you not spending my money, hell naw y’all smoke that shyt then come back here eating up everything in site and when I’m watching Maury I like to eat a little snack No because yall done at up all the shit. “The answer is no, it’s been no since the last time, and it’ll be no tomorrow too.”
Marcus whispered to me, “He really IS psychic!”
“Nah,” Paw Paw chuckled, “I just know what the hell going on. Plus, your mama already called and told me not why y’all asses back over here. How the hell is a 20 year old mama got to tell them to clean up your room and get a job or go to school. Some dumb ass sleeping on my living room floor asking me to take them to store.”
“Aww, man!” both kids groaned in unison.
“Aww, man y’all assess. And before y’all think about saying anything else—no, I’m not giving you ride or money to go to the store either. And no, you can’t order DoorDash on my phone. And definitely no, you cannot have the leftover cake in the refrigerator.”
I was stunned. “How did you—”
“Thirty years of children nephews, and nieces, now all I hear is ” Paw Paw Paw Paw with they little smiles on their faces. Like I ain’t been through before. “They all got the same playbook just different formations. Now, who wants to help me make some pancakes?”
Suddenly, the store was completely forgotten.
“No! No!” The kids shouted, racing toward their grandma.