My Gramma from Tramma was so very special to me.  I truly believe her love was part of the reason I turned out better than some of my siblings.  She loved me unconditionally and everyone in the family knew that I was her favorite granddaughter.  Now, it’s no secret that she liked to visit her favorite watering hole.  It has been said that back in the days when they were raising their family, they were most likely alcoholics.  But, that didn’t taint my unending love for them as they had definitely mellowed by the time I was old enough to realize my relationships with them.

And now it’s time to document another family story.

We lived on a farm in Iowa.  There were five kids in our household, plus our parents.  Unfortunately, our mom was not up to the challenge of raising five kids so we always had someone in our house to help care for us.

Mom and Dad decided they wanted to go out for an evening.  Gramma from Tramma was left in charge…but, Dad warned her, before he left, that she was to stay out of his beer in the fridge.  He teased her often about various things, but he knew she couldn’t resist having a beer or six after us kids went to bed.

Our bedtime was 7 pm, whether it was winter or summer.  On the night I’m talking about, we were bathed and put to bed on time.  I usually sat up and bonked against the headboard until I was able to fall asleep.  I’m sure Gramma hollered at me a time or two to quit my bonking and get to sleep.

As I laid down, getting ready for slumber…all of a sudden we heard Gramma yell really loud.  Of course, we were terribly worried about whatever she was hollering about but we were all reluctant to get out of our beds to go see.  Gramma never stopped hollering so we all got up and crept to the kitchen area to figure out what was going on.  At that point, Gramma was hollering and laughing at the same time.  We were totally confused.  But, she told us everything was okay and we needed to get back to bed.  Reluctantly, the five of us returned to our rooms.

The next day, we found out what had happened.  Dad had placed a mousetrap under the fridge, RIGHT where someone who was going to sneak into the fridge would get caught.  And Gramma got caught!  That mousetrap caught her big toe and that’s why she was hollering and laughing.  Dad had played yet another joke on her!  Oh my, the laughter over that incident has never ceased when we talk about it.  In fact, I have a hard time talking about it without laughing my fool head off!  Once she saved her big toe from the mousetrap, she raided the fridge for Dad’s PBR and drank herself through Dad’s stash.

What fun we have had, over the years, repeating that story.  And I document it here for my kids…so they know there was fun and laughter despite the trials and tribulations that happened later in our youth.