Grandmothers and Toolboxes:
A Lesson in the Subtle Art of Semantics
by Beth
Written for Engl 3040 Literary Nonfiction, ETSU Fall 2004
About the Writer
Beth is a senior and an English major at ETSU. She is employed by Citibank as a Quality evaluator and sometimes technical writer. She currently resides in Kingsport with Dixie, the Amazing One-Eyed Spaniel and two cats—Piper and Fred.
* * *
“Do not ask for what
you will wish you had not got.”
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca
For the past twenty-nine years, my father’s mother (Nana) and I have experienced a strange communication phenomenon every year at Christmas. Whatever the reason, around the holidays either I lose the ability to speak English or she loses the ability to understand it. We never seem to be able to communicate on the subject of Christmas gifts. For the first twenty years of my life, I asked for casual clothes (jeans and sweaters). For the first twenty years, I routinely received blouses and corduroy skirts. For the twenty-first year, I actually asked for dressy clothes (I had started a job that required business attire). Of course, that was the year I received jeans and a sweater. So, when Nana asked what I would like to have for Christmas that year I made it simple. I wanted a toolbox. Not the giant Craftsman type that belongs in a pit crew. Just a small toolbox that comes with the basic tools a person might need to fix something around the house. I live alone and I had not yet acquired a plethora of tools. When something broke, I usually had to borrow a tool from Dad or my boyfriend, Steve. I explained I had seen the toolbox I wanted at Wal-Mart for twenty dollars. We discussed the gift. I was fairly confident that she understood what I was asking for.
That particular year, we were celebrating Christmas on Thanksgiving with my dad’s parents. This means that I get to cram all of the stress of two holidays into one twenty-four hour period, lucky me. Thanksgiving day arrived. It would be cliché to say the morning started off bad, and then got worse. But it did. I hate the holidays anyway. I especially hate holidays when relatives come from out of state (grandparents). They are in your house ALL THE TIME and there is no escape. My salvation was that I had recently purchased a home and I was no longer at the mercy of visitors at my parent’s house.
How did the morning go from bad to
worse? Steve got up before me. He
showered and went to Food City to pick up the dinner for his mom (he had
Thanksgiving dinner catered for her). He
was going to pick me up later, so I slept late. I woke up and started to get in the shower and my
obsessive-compulsive disorder kicked in.
My favorite towel was in the floor. There was no one at home to yell at, so I grabbed another towel
and tried to shake off the feeling.
After my shower, I began putting on my makeup. I opened my makeup pallet to discover my favorite eye shadow was
in pieces. Apparently, someone had
knocked it off the shelf and failed to mention it to me. Now, my nerves are strung tighter than Anna
Nicole’s bra. I am two words away from
a crying jag. I thought to myself, “The
day can only get better, because it can’t get much worse,”-- famous last words.
Steve picked me up; we went to his mom’s and spent a pleasant afternoon having dinner with his family. Everyone was nice, and I started to think that I could shake the mood off. If only that were the case. He brought me home and I started to make the pie that would be my contribution to the dinner that evening at my folk’s house. The pie fell, and I had a nuclear melt down.
We finally made it to my parent’s house and I
felt like a porcupine. I had little
nerve stickers in all directions just waiting on someone to brush me the wrong
way. We had dinner and then we all
sat down to open our gifts. I opened
the first gift from my grandparents and it’s the obligatory giant cartoon
character house shoes. It was Sylvester
this year. I hate Sylvester. But, my dog will enjoy chewing them up. So, I smile and thank them. Then, Nana handed me a HUGE box. A box that was way too big and too light to
be the little toolbox I wanted. The box
was wrapped, but when she sat it down in front of me it made a wobble
sound. The sound it made is one that
everyone who was a child in the 1980’s would know. It was sound of the plastic on the front of a box containing a toy.
I sat the box on my knees and it was tall enough to cover my face. I tore the paper away to reveal that my Nana
did actually attempt to get me what I asked for. I held on my lap, a brand new, Builder’s Pal Toolbox. She bought
me a child’s toolbox, a freaking child’s toolbox. It was a toolbox that the Beave would have
used to help Ward build a tree house, not the toolbox of a single homeowner who
has visions of perfectly balance shelves. Nana does not have a sense of humor.
I knew this was not a joke; she actually thought that I would want the
Builder’s Pal Toolbox. I buried my
head behind the toolbox and began to laugh.
“You are going to hurt Nana’s feelings,” Steve hissed at me from the corner of his mouth.
“Show us what you got, Bethy,” chimed Nana. I was still too busy laughing, and wiping away the tears. My mom started to look a little scared. My dad was shaking his head and covering his face with his hand.
Granddad looked at Nana and asked, “Wanda, what the hell did you get her?” Sara (my sister) and her husband were trying not to laugh. I turned the box around and my mom’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t contain it and started to laugh. Then everyone in the room but Nana was laughing.
“Well the lady at the store said it had real tools!” Nana said with indignation. In her defense, it does. It has a little hammer, a tiny plastic ruler, one small screwdriver and a small plastic level. All emblazoned with the “Builder’s Pal” logo. They were all neatly packaged inside a small, old-fashioned, triangular wooden toolbox, also bearing the logo. I turned twenty-eight that year, and she bought me a child’s toolbox.
The evening’s festivities were somewhat diminished after that. We rushed to finish opening our gifts. We voiced nonexistent gratitude for our gifts with a smile that should more accurately be described as a grimace. Later, Nana called me to offer to return the toolbox and get me something else. I politely declined.
“Really, Nana, I can use the tools in the box,” I lied. I have learned from past experience, it’s better to just leave things alone in this area. Our past attempts at the gift/return cycle are legendary. One of us (mostly me) usually ends up with hurt feelings. On more than one occasion it has ended in a fight. I thought it was best to leave well enough alone. Besides, I can paint the toolbox, drill a couple of holes in the bottom, and make a nice planter out of it.
* * *
Two years have passed since that Christmas. I have found that I prefer the hammer in the toolbox to a full size hammer for craft projects and I have actually used the tiny plastic level. So, overall it wasn’t such a horrible gift. My grandparents will be visiting in a few weeks. While driving to the movies the other night Steve mentioned that they are supposed to be bringing me a lawnmower.
I replied, “Really? They didn’t mention it to me.”
“Yeah, Sara told me yesterday,” he said. “It’s the kind that blows bubbles.”