There are numerous things that cause consternation in a grandfather’s life, especially when the grandkids are not only clueless, but even worse, fearless.

They seem to proliferate like rats. It seems like every time I look the other way there’s another in the oven. Don’t get me wrong, I love them barefoot varmints more than sausage and grits, but when you’ve got a whole flock of the little heathens asking questions that you can’t possibly know even half the answers to it’s almost impossible to speak truthfully.

They all have a unnatural attraction concerning the Wicked Witch of the West, (Elphaba) and the Good Witch of the East, (Glenda) who are basically strong enough characters to keep up with, even for a Paw Paw with some-timers disease like myself. 

Then you find yourself answering questions about the other two sisters of the North and South, never mentioned by L. Frank Baum.

Things like, “Was the Witch of the North a damn Yankee?”

Or, “Was the witch of the south a member of the Daughters of Confederate Veterans?”
 
And other: “What would you do if a T. Rex showed up at Moccasin Bend and was really, really hungry?”

And other remarkable questions like, “Can a cinnamon roll as far as a tomato can?”

If you were taking a test at school, and the last question was, “If you counted all the splinters in a quart of wood alcohol, would you follow the rest of the instructions and drink it and turn the paper in and pass out quietly?”

“If me and my sister got lost and separated and one of us went to hell and the other wound up in Arkansas, which one of us would you rescue first?”

Some of those questions can be answered. The T.  Rex  question, for instance. If you keep something handily about that will demolish a beaver dam, it will probably serve a purpose on a big stupid lizard as well.

The question about my grand babies being scattered between Hell and Arkansas is a no brainer. I’ve had glimpses of both places and the poor unfortunate darling that wound up in Arkansas would be at the top of the priority sheet for rescue. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never met the devil in person, but I’ve seen plenty of his work and it’s my opinion that he stays busier in Arkansas than he does in Hell and Fudge Town put together.

As for the questions about the WITCHES, I told them to go ask their grandmother since that was her specialty during our overly protracted life together. She would be a more qualified advisor in that department than I would, (and she once went to Kansas on a bicycle and was born in Arkansas to boot.)

She was working in a bootleg Juke Joint at the time and a backdoor gambling establishment when I first met her. I had to leave before her shift ended. She was dealing black jack with a house deck that had been stripped, shaved, stacked, and marked.

One of the players smelled a rat. After he lost his poke, he left the table and stole her broom so she had to walk home. She was pretty much mule-lipped by then. She burned candles until she ran out of wax and then went out back and burned the outhouse and chanted the song American Pie (bassackwards) at sunrise and we ain’t seen him since.

At that point I thought I pretty much had all the bases covered until the last question popped up. I made sure it was the last question. When you hear what it was you’ll know why.

“Paw Paw, where do babies come from?”

I’m usually pretty quick with an answer of some sort, whether it’s correct not, but I had to stall for a minute. Or it could have been an hour and they may have noticed, but eventually I came up with a possible proper answer. “It depends on what hospital they were born in.” (It was the best I could come up with at a moment’s notice.)

My response temporarily satisfied their curiosity. That’s about the time I decided to quit while I was ahead and pretended to go to sleep.

If any of y’all can come up with a better spur-of-the-moment answer for such a question, let me know.
 
I’ve got a terrible feeling that that conversation has not reached its conclusion.
 
Help Me,

Ricky Harpole

(Contact Harpole at www.facebook.com/harpolive or www.colespointrecords.com)