My Granny likes to fall down on a seasonal basis. Bushes. Concrete. Door handles. None of them stand a chance when Granny is around. Poor thing, it’s not really her fault, she suffered a brain trauma decades ago and affects her balance. She now has to walk like she is constantly on a cruise ship in the middle of a hurricane. At least, that is what I think it is, she did take a lot of cruises in the past so that could be it too.
Everyone has their kryptonite. Granny has two. Gravity and Monosodium Glutamate, MSG, the tasty preservative that makes Chinese food, Chinese food. If it weren’t for those two things I imagine the lady would go on living forever. Unfortunately, she’s drawn to both Chinese food and falling down like a moth to a flame.
The injuries from falling are pretty self-explanatory. Broken bones, bruises, excruciating pain, possible opioid addictions. The MSG, I should explain. MSG isn’t really something a lot of folks think about. Many years ago there was some uproar about it being bad for you or causing heart problems but that is not where I am going with this. All it takes is one little drop of this stuff to hit Granny’s stomach and it rivals any of the early Manhattan Project experiments. I’m talking air-raid signal blaring, you better run for the gas mask type of explosions. Whenever she sees MSG on a box of something she’ll say, “That MSG will make you run!” One event even caused her to cut across 7 lanes of Atlanta traffic to make an emergency stop in front of a check cashing place at the airport.
I had never considered what would happen if both of these events occurred at the same time. Lucky for me I got to experience it a few years ago. I believe it was Thanksgiving and the martinis were flowing, next thing you know Granny’s laying on the floor and the EMT’s are showing up. Her pupils were fine and she could wiggle her toes so we figured we’d just put her to bed and not deal with all the hospital stuff so late in the evening.
In the morning things weren’t better so we took her to the doctor to check the ol’ gray mare out. The doctor asked her to remove her shirt but she removed her pants instead. When asked later why she did that, she replied, “He was a tall drink of water, wasn’t he?”. After the exam and some X-rays, we found out she had fractured her back. That explained why she was barely mobile.
The thing about going to the doctor for hours is that it works up a heck of a hunger. Guess what, there’s a Chinese restaurant on the way home. We should stop there. So we did. Usually Granny asks if the dish has any MSG in it before she orders but I guess the opioids were doing their job and she failed to interrogate the waiter. We ate and left.
I was unaware that we were driving the Enola Gay home, about halfway through the drive Granny perks up from her coma…”I think there was MSG in that chicken.” I knew then I had to put the peddle to the metal. I look over and Granny is digging her talons into the armrest and doing some sort of old lady Lamaze breathing.
I pulled up to her house, opened her garage, and rushed to my trunk to get her walker. But she was not there. I asked my wife what happened, she said shocked, “She ran!”. I went to check on her and wouldn’t have been able to make it past the front door without a respirator. My 80-year-old grandmother was able to jump out of a car and sprint, maybe even doing a cartwheel on the way to the bathroom...with a broken back. A woman who could barely walk to her mailbox on a normal day without risking major injury. I asked her how she was able to accomplish this feat. She replied. “I told you, MSG will make you run!”