Fresh Peppermint

“GRANDPA!!!!!! Are you here?”  I had called 3-4 times and even left two messages after waiting through the incredibly long and obnoxious voice mail recording on his answering machine.  I ducked my head into the family room.  The T.V. was off but my grandpa’s fishing hat was lying on a pile of newspapers next to the couch.  Although I wouldn’t completely omit a fishing expedition from the list of things my grandpa might try to do on a Thursday afternoon, he more likely had just returned from a bike ride.

I slipped back into the hallway and headed for the stairs, running smack into my Grandpa somewhere between the washing machine and the hall bathroom.  He reeked of mouth wash and his pants were belted just above his belly-button.

“Whoa!  Hey!” my Grandpa laughed, “I was just leaving!”

“You were!  Where are you going?”

“Bridge!”

I casually looked at the time on my phone.  It was half past 10.  He doesn’t go anywhere until at least 11:45.  “Ok…well you just go on ahead with whatever you’re doing.  I’m going to do some cleaning.”  I headed for the stairs and the back room my mom had suggested I start rifling through.  I had barely enough time to pick up an manila envelope when the scent of antisceptic fresh peppermint burned my nostrils.  I turned.

“What are you doing?” he asked.  His pants had slipped back down, by the grace of Vogue, to his waist.

“I was going to clean up here a little bit.”

“No you’re not.  I saved that stuff.  God knows why because no one ever asks me for it but I’m supposed to keep it!”

“My mom said that maybe you’d like some help cleaning out the papers you don’t need.”

“She did?  I don’t remember this.”

“Well alright then,” I agreed, flipping off the dusty light switch, “I’ll find out and we’ll go from there.  For now, how about I just clean the kitchen floor.”  And throw away some expired canned goods, I mentally added.

His agreement wasn’t verbal, but instead a comfortable reclining at the kitchen table, preparing to watch me scrub.

I was attempting to catch or drown an ant the size of a small horse when I heard my Grandpa fidgeting in his chair.

“Do your coats have pockets?” he asked me, pulling at the sleeve of his polo shirt.

“My shirts?  No.  They don’t have pockets.”

“I hate this new coat.  Where am I supposed to keep my glasses if I don’t have a pocket!”

“In the bread box?” I laughed, pulling his glasses out from under a bag of peanuts he had stored in his bread box.

“Oh there they are!” he snatched them from me.  “My neighbor is going to kill me.”

“Because of the cigars?” I asked.  “I really doubt he is going to kill you.  He might send some bad vibes your way though.  I would too if you blew cigar smoke into my yard.”

My grandpa laughed.  “Bad vibes?”  He laughed again.  “Yea, maybe some bad vibes.”

I continued mopping as my Grandpa did is rounds.  His rounds, thanks to the layout of his house and the hallway that loops around his dining room, really do go round, and round.  First in the bathroom, then heading down the hall to find his coat (despite the heat), back around the loop to the bedroom to change his shirt (for the third time that day) and back to the bathroom to comb his hair.  Heading next to the hall closet once more to grab his hat he forgot to put on when he got his coat.  Then back around to his bedroom, where, undoubtedly, he will forget what he was looking for and continue around again, past the bathroom to put his shoes on.  After a few minutes I looked into the mud room.  His shoes had been pulled out of the hall closet but he wasn’t in them.  Thankfully, no one else was either.

I set the mop down and looped around the house.  Twice.  I climbed the stairs, checked the back room, the bathroom, the closets.  No grandpa.  As I passed the window in the spare bedroom I saw him.  He was on the back lawn, in his socks, carrying his worn out wicker chair away from the property line to the middle of the lawn, leaving a trail of white paint flecks in his path.  I ran downstairs, scooped up his shoes and followed him to the middle of the yard.

“Forgetting something?” I called across the lawn, dangling the shoes out to my right like candy.

My grandpa settled into his chair and looked up, laughing.  “Oh those.  Yea, I noticed I didn’t have them on when I stepped on a rock but I made it this far!” He kept laughing and I joined in, sprawling out in the grass next to him as he lit a cigar.

“You know, I can’t find the hat I normally wear so I have to wear this one.” he said, tugging on the bill of a navy blue baseball cap.

“Your fishing hat?” I asked, remembering that it sat on the pile of Washington Posts in his family room.

Per usual, his look of confusion meant I had spoken into the wind and he was just going to make up the next part to make it seem like he had heard me.  He took his hat off and thumbed the golf club that was embroidered in light blue on the front of his hat. “I don’t think so.  That’s not a fishing pole, Mary.  That’s a baseball bat.”