Slight of (Wrinkly) Hand

Sliding into the 50's style green pleather seats of "Jim's Steak and Spaghetti House" always brings back memories of my youth. The smell of the meat sauce and the waitresses' crisp white uniforms and dark orange support hose instantly makes me feel at home ---and ravenous.

So when our nice server piled Captain Wafer crackers in a small white bowl on our table, Summer, Aunt Gwen and I lunged for them. My grandmother, a little older and a little slower, stretched one arm slowly across the table and plucked a pack of the buttery crackers. While the three of us ate the bits like rabid dogs, my grandmother examined each side of the package before deliberately and meticulously extracting a single cracker. Her precision was difficult to watch as I worried about her health. She didn't look tired. In fact, her cheeks were rosy, her lips were rouged and her skin glowed.

She looked better than me.

"I took her to Estee Lauder and made them give her a makeover," Gwen said proudly while reaching for another cracker bundle.

"Shelooksgreat!" Summer concurred without pausing and then launched into another topic involving IUD's or breastfeeding or something equally as uncomfortable. I decided to eat another cracker until the topic switched to something else - anything else - but they were gone. The waitress had just left a handful of them on the table as she saw how we attacked any morsel of food - but they were nowhere. Only five wrappers were scattered around the top of the table. But lest I seem like a piggy - I just crossed my arms and chose not to say anything.

I saw Summer reach for the bowl - notice the lone package sitting in it and pull her thin, bony hand back to her lap.

Soon after our spaghettis arrived and we ate heartily.

Afterwards, Gwen insisted on paying and as she reached into her wallet she said, "Well Mom, I swear if you haven't loaded my purse up with crackers!"

My grandmother smiled and pawed at the purse while Summer and I cracked up.

"I didn't even see her do it! None of us did!" I whispered to Sis as my grandmother slowly pushed to a standing position and shuffled down the aisle and we decided that she was the most masterful magician in the world.

She'll distract you and make you think she is old and slow and BAM! She'll have robbed you blind--- of crackers.