Fruitcake Times

   
   "Fruitcake Times"
   
   The late, great Johnny Carson used to say that there was only ONE fruitcake in the world, and that people kept re-sending it to other people, and that nobody ever actually ate it; furthermore, in Oliver Stone's movie Nixon, the President is heard calling G. Gordon Liddy a fruitcake, but I honor the man; however, am viewed as the fruitcake in my family.
   Anyway, my Grandma taught me to love the yummy Christmas combo of fruitcake, coffee, and cigarettes.  She was so much into sweets that one night, she ate two boxes of chocolate-covered cherries, imbibed two pots of coffee, and smoked three packs of cigarette--all in less than eight hours.
   The next morning--she told me that she had been very nervous.  And as a gunslinger smoker, sometimes having two smokes in each hand at the same time, every so often she'd develop a sore throat; next, spread Vicks VaporRub over her throat, wrap it in a towel, put a menthol (which is toxic to bacteria) cough drop in her mouth, and continue to smoke, but don't discount her, for she had talents.
   One night in her condo, I was walking to the bathroom in order to make an attempt to relieve my full bladder, for having Social Phobia--it ain't easy fella; then, I heard Grandma, with super-symmetrical aim, bull's eye her pee jar, filling it up with a furious-sounding urination.  Then, she lit up a Lucky.
   She would raise her hands to God, as did Moses do in times of war, asking for the Almighty to assist her elderly needs, and the Man Upstairs always came through; plus, she would always tell me to live by the Ten Commandments, though she gave me possibly some false testimony, informing me when I was a blossoming adolescent, that if I ever touched my private parts for pleasure; next, I would mess up the tube inside my pee pee.  
   I loved her so much, and my favorite times in life were playing Gin Rummy with her during the Midnight Hour, while we burned candles, drank coffee, and lit a few smokes--laughing, laughing, laughing . . .