HARPOON!!

My family is composed of storytellers. Sometimes we are guilty of over sharing or telling the same story over and over, but I could never see my family letting this story die. My grandma and grandpa on my dad's side made an almost yearly trek from their big plot of land in the middle of no where, Montana to my parent's home in Portland, Oregon. It's about a 10 hour journey and it is not lined with tourist attractions or decent restaurants along the way. When my grandparents were packing up the car my grandma began yelling from the inside of their house to my grandpa in the driveway, which I can only guess-timate was a decent 200 feet away from each other. My grandma was yelling things they still needed to pack or pick up before they began their pilgrimage to P-town. I imagine maybe "READING GLASSES" or "OLD COUNTRY CASSETTE TAPES" were probably on the list of things that my dear grandmother could not survive 10 hours without. After a few items my papa heard his wife yell "HARPOON!!" from his place by the Buick in the driveway. 

Confused and assuming he heard incorrectly he yelled back "WHAT?!"

She answered "HARPOON!"

At this point he is still thinking he can't make out what she is actually saying so he yells back even louder.. "WHAT?!"

and again he hears even louder still "HAR--POON!!"

Now, to fully understand why I can't write this without laughing out loud to myself in my empty living room, you have to understand Parker men. They are the Ferrari of anger management. I'm not saying they are angry all the time, but when they do get angry it is 0 to totally pissed off in .6 seconds. I'm talking vein shooting out of their forehead, shaking with rage, the most obscenities you could string together in a sentence, Pissed. Hell hath no fury when a Parker man gets heated. 

So my grandpa is yelling repeatedly into the kitchen which already means he's already boiling over, but he continues to  pack the car and he can only think to yell back again "WHATTTTT?!"

I believe this went on for several more sequences until my grandpa stormed into the house and my grandma said "CAR FOOD!!!" making him feel foolish that he thought she was saying harpoon the whole time.

...for the record my grandparents or any member of my family has no interest in killing whales, that I am aware of, but to this day we find any excuse to yell "HARPOON!!"

I used my lunch break today to buy "harpoon" for Joel and my weekend road trip. 

My sweet tooth got the best of me and Target is my weakness in general. I managed to buy/pack some veggies though and it actually worked out on the road. 

I wandered the Target aisles in no rush and that's when my grandma and this funny story popped into my mind and stayed there.

I lost my amazing Grandma Teri to cancer when I was in middle school. Its hard for me to remember the good times because I remember her being sick so vividly. Luckily, my family has infinite memories to share, and this one we are treasure even though none of us were there in person. Personally though, I remember her singing, and answering every Jeopardy question correctly while simultaneously reading a romance novel. I remember her handing me donuts and milk through the sliding window between the cab and bed of the truck on one of those 10 hour drives. That same road trip my cousins taught me how to flip people off and none of the giggles from that family story would have existed without her. 

I know that now. 

She was so impressive and was never given enough credit for making so much effort to keep her family together. 

This is the song she knew all the words too.

Love your grandma. -that one girl.