"Pardon Me"

Cigarettes, Trivial Pursuit Junior, and how to win the game.

About a decade before my Grandma Norman died, my sister Sadie and cousin Kyla were convinced that she was on her last legs.

Grandma Norman had come down from Sudbury to stay at our family farm. In my eyes, she seemed perfectly fine. She was up to her usual: ironing underwear to Jerry Springer by day, and drinking bottomless Labatt in a crystal glass by night.

The only notable difference was that under strict and final warning, Grandma had quit smoking for the last time. It was weird to see her at the kitchen table without a cigarette.

Whenever she visited, I looked forward to the ashtray set at her commander’s station. It was arguably our nicest piece of formal china, illustrating a traditional British hunting scene with foxhounds and all. I thought it added glamour to our kitchen’s rustic, knotty-pine feel. 

Even without the ashtray and plume of carcinogens, Grandma Norman held onto the cigs. She had the look and feel of a smoker with yellowed fingers and a good-time raspy laugh. It was the type of laugh that quickly escalated into a prolonged coughing fit. 

She laughed and coughed often—the two mixing into an indistinguishable, asthmatic hybrid.

Sadie and Kyla argued that if Grandma had officially ditched her Player’s Lights, she had to be on death’s door. Frankly, it was a compelling argument. 

Note: During a previous stint where Grandma Norman was *medically unable* to smoke, she’d leave her window open and encourage visitors to smoke on her apartment’s front stoop. From inside, she’d inhale deep, meditative breaths of cigarette fumes. Occasionally, a random smoker would catch her sitting under her open window and apologize, but in her sweetest voice, she’d say, “Carry on dear, I love the smell.”

In the way that all conspiracy theories are hatched, Sadie, Kyla and I combined all of our information to colour in the image. We laid out all of Grandma’s comings and goings, recent anecdotes, and medical appointments. Suddenly, we took a pause—she had given each of us a compliment the day prior.

Something wasn’t right. Catholics go their whole lives without complimenting those they love. 

Our concerns deepened as we circled back to the original piece of evidence. Above all else, Grandma’s smoking cessation was the smoking gun.

Suddenly, it was obvious. Her weeks-long visit was one leg on her ‘farewell tour’. She was in town to get the old band together and put out fan favourites like her French-Canadian style bolognese, peanut butter cookies, and most eclectic string of swear words.

That night, instead of hot tubing with mocktails or watching Electric Circus, we decided to tend to our ailing Grandma. We went to her kitchen table post and asked if she wanted to play Trivial Pursuit Junior. 

While non-gambling games weren’t really her thing, winning was. And so, we did what any good grandchildren would do. We decided that to honour her appetite for petty wins, we’d rig Trivial Pursuit Junior in her favour. 

Sadie and Kyla teamed up, while I partnered with Grandma. 

After all, Grandma and I had the most hot and cold relationship. She was the centre of our large family, the no-bullshit bullshitter whose words, funny or otherwise, cut deep. She knew how to push my buttons and I knew how to take the bait. A lot of our exchanges ended in me storming off and then returning to glare at her with the drama of a Telenovela villain. 

Being on the same team was our chance at the inevitable camaraderie that’s forged under a low-stakes win.

As the game kicked off, I could tell that Sadie and Kyla were tee-balling Grandma with questions she’d know the answer to. 

“Which animal is the tallest in the world?” We both agreed, “Giraffe”.

“Which singing voice is the highest pitch? Soprano, tenor or baritone?” Together, we blurted out, “Soprano”.

“In sports, what is an MVP?”, and we settled on “Most Valuable Player”. 

As the game progressed, so did Grandma’s unflappable confidence. It was something we hadn’t accounted for. There were questions that my ten-year-old self felt strongly about but Grandma vetoed. 

“Which Holiday represents the resurrection of Jesus?”. I was pretty sure it was Easter Sunday, but Grandma settled on “Good Friday”. 

“Correct!”, Sadie and Kyla would affirm.

“Aha! See Grace, every decent Catholic knows that! If only you’d gone to church…”, Grandma gloated. 

With every correct answer, Grandma edged closer to smugness. Each round after she locked in our vote, her eyebrows raised with expectation as she waited to hear, “That’s right!”. 

Her perfect Trivial Pursuit Junior score had gone to her head.

With a significant lead, we needed just one more pie wedge to win the game—a blue piece from the “Whatever!” category. I could see Kyla scanning cards for the best question to secure our win. 

Our final question was, “What is the most popular word in the English language?”

Quickly, I ran through my internal rolodex and decided it had to be “the” or “a”. 

Setting her up for an easy co-sign I said, “I’m pretty sure it’s ‘the’, Grandma. What do you think?” I looked over at her and she seemed contemplative. 

Then, she perked up, energized by a visible eureka. 

“It’s not ‘the’! There’s no way!”, Grandma said brashly.

Before I could suggest, ‘a’ as an alternative, Grandma shouted, “It’s pardon me!”. 

Pardon me?! Pardon me isn’t even a word. It’s two words. It’s a fucking phrase!

She mustn’t have heard correctly. “No, Grandma. We’re looking for the most popular word. I think it’s ‘the,’” I confirmed.

My opposition only solidified her stance. “Everywhere I go, it’s ‘Pardon me, oooooo pardon me!’. In the grocery store all I hear is ‘Excuse me Mrs., pardon me! The whole goddamn place is one, big ‘pardon me’!”.

We all sat in silence, lost in our collective disbelief.

I let out a half-hearted, “Okay”.

With that, we locked in “pardon me” as the most popular word in the English language. 

I could see Sadie and Kyla scramble as they tried to determine if Grandma was messing with us. Had she caught on that the game was rigged?

They made the split decision to maintain the status quo. Plus, it was in our best interest to end the game.

“‘Pardon me' is correct!”.

And so, for the first time in human history, the phrase ‘pardon me’ was authorized as the most popular word in the language of international discourse.

“I knew it!!!”, Grandma exclaimed with her voice raised. “Pardon me, Mrs., pardon me! Oops, just scootin’ past ya, pardon me!”. 

I was annoyed. Grandma was assured.

After we crowned our Grandma as the indisputable MVP of Trivial Pursuit Junior (age 8+), we dispersed. 

For my sanity, I got Sadie and Kyla to confirm that “pardon me” was a ruse and that “the” was indeed correct. It turns out, I was also right on the Catholic one, but a religious question felt less grounded in reality anyway. It was “the” that bothered me.

Once the dust settled, our certainty that Grandma was dying dwindled. 

After all, she sure had a lot of energy to gloat. She was able to muster a Steve Austin “suck it!” level of cockiness. This wasn’t the prune-handed, white night-gowned vision of death I was picturing. The warm aura of giggling children running through a field of dandelion grass did not surround her. 

Grandma’s vibe was still fiery and combative with a dash of bar slot machine in rural Quebec. 

She was very much alive.

The next day, I asked my Mom the most pressing question in my junior life, “Is Grandma dying?”. My Mom shrugged, “In some ways, aren’t we all?”, and laughed. 

Finally, a real answer.

Those who were lucky enough to know Grandma Norman have enough stories about her to fill a book ten times over. Our top 40 hits of “Loretta” all have a distinctive flavour because she was her own brand. She was a bonafide take-it-or-leave-it-er who doubled down on whatever she thought was right, even when it was wrong. She didn’t bend or cater to the most difficult person in the room—she was that person. 

While my Grandma wasn’t easy, she didn’t come from easy. She was someone who had to overcome the depression-era struggle of abuse, unwed teen pregnancy, and trying to make ends meet. And despite having every right to be less and play it safe, she found the strength to be herself. As a woman, a victim, and a less-than, she found her voice. And in that, she connected with her power. Her pull. Her magic.

To this day, she’s captained three generations below her who at their core, house her unapologetic brand. Within each of us, is a stubborn grit—a deep-rooted defiance that we have to learn to grow into.

For me, when I’m faced with fear or self-doubt, I hear her smooth, cigarette-accented voice say, “fuck em’”. It’s a reminder that nobody else deserves to be there more than you. And that no matter what happens, we don’t have to be perfect—or even right—to win the game. We just have to be ourselves.