Grandma Norman

As kids, we unknowingly walk into controversy. Bombs detonate in our wake as we challenge our fearless leaders.

Before my Grandma Norman died, she was a force in Sudbury’s Donovan neighbourhood—an area known for sex work, dumpster fires, and teens riding too-small bikes. The parking spots in front of her 3-story textured apartment building were often taken, indicating her popularity with visitors. 

She was a larger-than-life character that down-on-their-luckers moved in with and family exes still came around to see.

With children, she had a keen and prophetic eye. Swiftly and without prompting, she’d size up any adolescent and determine things like:

“They’ll grow up to be a stripper”;

“That kid’s nothin’ but a quitter”;

And “She’s gonna have bigger boobs than cousin Céleste—yes, the one that drowned!”. 

I was 9 years old when I was prematurely given the legacy title of ‘biggest boobs in the family”—a designation that I was both confused and delighted by.

Grandma Norman was the rare breed of woman that could drink twelve Labatt beer in one sitting without ever needing to pee.

Note: You never—and I mean ever—pronounce the “s” in “beers” in small-town Canada.

No matter how many beer(s) you drink, it’s always a singular “beer”. Saying “beers” reveals you as a soft, pretentious, outsider who hasn’t earned the privilege of grammatically treating one beer the same as seven.

Grandma’s ability to hold pee is a common theme in the stories we recount about her. One time, she spotted a spider on the ceiling in her bathroom and held her pee for two days before pissing into a kitchen pot (we never asked about number two). And in the face of a promising slot machine? She could hold her pee day and night.

She was stubborn and tough. No one messed with her—only spiders.

She was also a Northern Ontario lady. Her oversized t-shirts were perfectly pressed and monochromatically matched to elastic-waisted trousers. She ironed underwear. She always had a metal nail file and scotch mints on hand, and she wouldn’t dare drink her Labatt from the bottle.

Her bottomless beer was only ever drunk from a shot-sized crystal glass. Considering the volumes she regularly consumed, we’ve often pondered why she chose such a small vessel. Personally, I think it’s so that more often than not, her glass would be half full.

She was an incredible cook.

Her French-Canadian spaghetti made grown men teary eyed. Her butter tarts are what made the women weep. Her cooking was the manifestation of her unique magic—it could be imitated, but never replicated. Her daughters, my Mom and two Aunts, have spent their entire adult lives trying to perfect her recipes. A combined 200 years in the kitchen and while their food is exceptional, it still lacks that “je ne sais quoi”.

That piece was her.

In her final years, Grandma Norman lost most of her appetite but continued to cook family dinners in her spotless, smoke-stained apartment. 

When the number of visitors exceeded her dinner plates, we’d eat in shifts. She once called for the “men to eat first” and told the women and children to “stay back!”—the opposite of the Titanic.

And so it was. The collection of Dads and Uncles named “Bill” secured their spots on the Bolognese lifeboat ahead of the rest. 

While Grandma no longer ate the hot suppers she’d perfected, she never fully lost her appetite. Rest assured, her hunger for petty gambling and booze never went away.

But when it came to food, she only felt like eating one thing: ice cream cones.

And when I say “ice cream cones”, I literally mean just the cone. Not shaken, not stirred, and never with any ice cream.

I’ll level with you—around this time she was averaging about a sleeve of cones a day.

One year over the Holidays, during “peak cones”, we played the annual Christmas Steal Game.

Note: For those unfamiliar, the Christmas Steal Game is a dog-eat-dog, living room drama where all participants draw a number, and when their number is called, either unwrap a gift or steal an opened gift from someone else.

Spicy families often play with the added caveat that whomever draws number one must go first, but also gets the final game play.

This means, once all gifts have been opened and exchanged, number one gets to steal the least shitty gift in the litter. In other words, lucky number one’s *real* gift is scorning a final victim.

Each year, despite more than half of the players being underage, Grandma Norman put forth the same gift: a bottle of Grand Marnier.

The rest of us would fill in the gaps with an array of gifts that were classically throw-outable: carcinogenic bubble bath, a plug-in thermos, a boxed CD set of The Jackson 5 sung by a studio band. You know, the types of gifts that only get more disappointing with use. 

This time around, we decided to curate a gift especially for Grandma. We wanted her to end up with something that appealed to her particularities and wouldn’t become a dumpster fire casualty.

With a stroke of holiday magic, we had secured just the thing: an industrial-sized box of ice cream cones.

This box of cones was undoubtedly the largest ever purchased for residential use. We’re talking 500—maybe even 1000—wafer cones. All wrapped up, the box had the footprint of a mini-fridge. 

With the appliance-sized box of cones loaded underneath the tree, we took our places and drew the pecking order.

As fate would have it, I drew number one. I’d not only get to kick the game off, but would ultimately decide where the final chips would fall.

I could taste the power. 

The game started off as usual. I unwrapped something forgettable, gifts got shuffled, and there was the standard upset of steals n’ deals. Collectively, we all avoided opening the wide-loaded elephant in the room.

Then, chaos ensued.

The coveted gift that man, woman, and child would go to war for revealed itself: a Bingo Holiday Pack. It was name brand, it had star power, and it promised a $50,000 payout!

Immediately, I fantasized about life as a child lottery winner.

Innately, I knew that I’d have to scratch the winning ticket off-site. If I unveiled the $50,000 prize at my Grandma’s, we’d enter the tricky grey area of either: splitting the winnings with the original purchaser, or being exiled from the family at the age of 10.

I’d need to build in a buffer so that it would be impossible to trace the source of my winnings. 

But if necessary, I was prepared to fight to protect my wealth. I would handle the windfall controversy in the same way that I handled all other fights: by running away.

I’d stuff my Winnie the Pooh backpack with Fruit Roll-Ups™ and the collection of self-addressed Birthday cards that I kept bedside.

Then, I’d walk 100 metres into a neighbouring field, plunk down behind some foliage, and glare towards the house. To pass the time, I’d leaf through my cards, reminiscing on simpler times and weeping at the “Bless Yous” from the family I once knew. 

All the while, I’d carefully monitor any comings and goings, waiting for my parents and half a dozen handsome police officers to begin their frantic search.

Approximately 27 minutes later—without a single holler of my name—I’d slink back to the house red-faced, defeated, and ready for mediation.

The Bingo Holiday Pack had kicked things into high gear. It was clear that I wasn’t the only one willing to sever all family ties for it. There were savage steals and the level of bad-mouthing that if overheard in Forest Hill would have Child Protective Services called. 

Thick clouds of tension rolled through the air, but I, blinded by the juvenile shameless, was completely and utterly oblivious. 

Finally, the regular game concluded.

The dust was beginning to settle as everyone accepted that they’d be going home with a loofah instead of $50,000.

However, what the family had forgotten—as everyone does in living rooms across this fine Nation—was that one final play remained. 

Me, lucky number one, would enforce the concluding prize shuffle with one last steal. And this time, Hollywood couldn’t have written a better script.

Somehow, in all of the mayhem, I ended up with the commercial box of ice cream cones (LOL)! What would I, a pot-bellied kid who still ate solids, do with enough wafer to laminate a gymnasium floor? 

Incredibly, while I had the cones, my Grandma held in her clutches the Bingo Holiday Pack! How rare in life that we get to make things right with one seamless transaction?

With confident determination, I announced, “The game isn’t over! There’s one more steal left!” (see the above agreement ^).

With that, I gestured for everyone to remain seated.

I shuffled across the carpet towards my Grandma, bear-hugging the lifetime supply of cones.

In that moment, time slowed and bombs detonated behind me as parents, cousins, Aunts, and Bills watched on in horror. With blind self-assurance, I proudly scooted the box of cones to her feet.

Then, without pause, I snatched the shiny Bingo card packet from her hands.

A choir of audible gasps erupted.

For a split second, I thought everything was right in the world. My Grandma had enough edible dust to last the decade and I could buy my Mom a Rav4 and (likely) a private island too. 

Then, I glanced around the room and was met with a sea of uncertainty.

I had done what no one dared to do: challenge our leader.

And worst of all, I had done it in a way that she’d find most personally offensive: by stealing her chance to gamble from the comfort of an armchair. 

I had pushed further than everyone else had learned to go. I had pulled off a move that only one other person in the room would dare attempt: Grandma Norman herself. 

I looked down at my small crystal glass of apple juice and took a sip in silence.

As kids, we aren’t fluent in the unspoken rules of engagement.

We say the things that adults are afraid to, and do the things that adults wish they could get away with.

This fearlessness—a staple ingredient of our youth—is the hardest to get back after we lose it. And we almost always lose it.

Fucks given: zero