You may remember me very briefly mentioning that my Grandfather is a one-man cabaret act during breakfast time and promising to fill you in on the details? You probably don’t remember, but either way the time has now come for me to share this unique form of entertainment with you.
Because, frankly, if I have to suffer it … so do you. That’s the deal. That’s what blogs are for, offloading your frustration, irritability and family-induced mental instability onto complete strangers.
Are you sitting comfortably? Well stop that! Sit up straight and don’t slouch. How do you expect to give me your full attention if you’re all laidback and relaxed?
So, as you know, my Grandfather has, amongst other things, a slight case of dementia. Let me stress, he doesn’t have Alzheimer's (thank goodness), he’s just quite old and his brain is slowing down, and the main symptoms of this are forgetfulness and repetition. Normally I only catch the Breakfast Show at weekends, the rest of the week I’m up for work and out the door before he’s even gained consciousness and has had time to shuffle out of bed, looking like a tortoise that swapped his shell for a pair of brushed cotton pyjamas and has crazy bed hair.
But since I can’t work at the moment I experience it on a daily basis. And. It’s. Driving. Me. Slowly. Insane.
My Grandfather has always loved music and I can’t remember a time when he didn’t whistle, hum or sing to himself when he was working or doing something. It’s one of the things I’ve always identified with him and loved him for. But in years past he gave us variety, there were certain songs that you knew he particularly liked and he would often return to them, but now it’s different.
I think, because his memory is hazy and jumbled now, that in his mind he often goes back in time. That’s the only explanation I can find for why he seems fixed on songs that come straight from the dark ages. Plus, he sings in what can only be described as a “30’s warble”; you know like in films? When they play records on those old gramophones and the men all sound like they’re singing from the bottom of the sea with a plum in their mouth having just had a testicle surgically removed? Well that’s how my Grandfather sings now and, depending on which song he’s singing, it can have varying degrees of making you want to rip your own ears off and stuff them in the nearest blender.
In order to explain I also need to first tell you that my Grandfather sings in medleys, two medleys to be precise which in turn consist of two or three snippets of different songs all mashed up together with zero rhyme or reason. He also sings according to his mood; one medley is positively perky and playful and other words starting with “P” (just think of an early 20th century version of Steps to get a mental image) and the other is so ridiculously gloomy that it has you staring blankly at a wall in seconds, questioning the necessity of life and the futility of your own miserable existence.
The cheerful medley consists of “Daisy”, “Leaning on a Lamppost” and a truly bizarre song involving a bird and a worm! It goes something like:
“I’m leaning on the lamppost at the corner of the street in case a certain little lady comes by, ohhh meeee, ohhh myyyy, I hope that little lady comes by, Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do, She was only a poor little dicky bird, tweet, tweet, tweet she went, I’m half crazy all for the love of you, she was one of the early birds and I was one of the worms”
The gloomy, lets-all-kill-ourselves-with-Kool-Aid-and-rat-poison-smoothies medley is a mash up of “Danny Boy”, “Edelweiss” and a song I’ve never heard of, but which I suspect depressed millions some time at the turn of the last century, it goes:
“I’m a..lone, be-cause I loved youuu, I loved you with all my heeeeart, the summer’s gone and all the flowers are dyyying, Edelweiss, Edelweiss, every morning you greet me, and if you come when all the flowers are dyyyying, and I am dead, as dead I may well be, yes, I’m alone because I loved you, bless my homeland for-eeeveeeeer”.
And that’s what we get every morning. He has a breakfast routine of epically OCD proportions, he has the same thing each day (two shredded wheat with warm milk and two slices of wholemeal toast with apricot jam, for those of you with an demented inquisitive nature), he does everything in precisely the same order, in precisely the same way, it takes him 20 minutes just to make toast, and the whole time he is preparing his breakfast he is warbling one of the mentioned medleys over and over and over again.
He actually reminds me of that old boy in the film “Forget Paris” (which I personally thought was pretty awful except for him), you know, Debra Winger’s father? He kept muttering “You asked for it? You got it! Toy-O-ta!” No? Well here’s a clip … and when you watch it, just mentally superimpose my head onto Billy Crystal’s body, because as ashamed as I am to admit, I do, do that thing with the silent screaming … and, er, the knife … sometimes. Although I would hasten to assure you that I DO actually adore my Grandfather, I just forget that I do occasionally, mainly during breakfast.
He even does that toast scraping thing occasionally, too.
(I DO love my Grandfather. I DO love my grandfather. I DO love my Grandfather)
He also has a double act going on the side with the dog. You see, the dog is neurotic and barks hysterically at every little goddamned noise, i.e when somebody walks past the house, when the phone rings, when a leaf falls off a tree three streets away whenever anybody knocks at the door. Unfortunately, my Grandfather is also a little hard of hearing and convinced that he is always right about everything. So what we get is a constant round of:
Dog: Woof, woof woof woof, woof, woof
Grandfather: Be quiet Jack, there’s nobody there.
Dog: Woof woof, woof woof woof woof
Grandfather: Jack! Shut up! There’s nobody there!
Dog: Woof, woof woof, woof woof woof WOOF
Grandfather: SHUT UP JACK! THERE’S NOBODY BLOODY WELL THERE!
And this goes on and on, throughout the day, every day. And what’s worse, is that sometimes there really IS somebody there, it’s just that my Grandfather automatically assumes that the dog is barking for no reason and sees no point in actually bothering to look and see whether anybody is at the door. So of course, since I can hear from upstairs that there IS somebody at the door, and since I can’t shout to tell him to open the effing door, I have to slowly make my way downstairs, muttering and cursing under my breath about Grandfather’s and dog’s and stupid, inconsiderate people who like to knock on doors at all times of the daytime, and by time I get there they have of course gone.
Gah! Can you say “Infuriating”? I can’t even scream, which seems terribly unfair.
I’m thinking of buying them matching, spangley gold outfits and selling them to a carnival.
What can I say? I’m not a morning person.
