Come on Baby, Do the Grandpa Shuffle

My cousins and I used to sing that, to the tune of "Do the Locomotion" when we were kids. Grandpa was 63 when I was born and as far as I can remember, he's shuffled my whole life. Now he's 97 and he's still shuffling away. Actually, he gets more exercise than I do. Hmm.

The StairMaster is his favorite. No, not the stationary stepper, he prefers the real thing. He goes up and down our stairs all day long. He'll use any excuse to shuffle up and down the stairs as much as possible. This would be fine, if it weren't for the flatulence.

I guess it's just too much strain for his body to handle; climbing stairs and holding in his bowels at the same time. It usually starts around the third step. First, a preemptive trumpet, high and startling. Then, a sound not unlike someone cutting through a bag of wet marbles with a table saw. This goes on for several steps. Finally, after a brief silence, a hollow toot to mark the end of the movement.

What's truly remarkable is that he does this every time he uses the stairs. How does one little old man produce go much gas? Why doesn't he just run out of steam like a normal person?

His second favorite form of exercise is walking. The man goes out for walks more often than my dog. One time he was gone for over an hour, so I went looking for him. I couldn't find him. I was seriously thinking about calling the police when he suddenly appeared, slowly shuffling down the street towards out house. Of course, he hadn't actually been walking the whole time. It turned out he'd been spending time with an old Hungarian widow who lives around the corner. No wonder he likes going for walks. I just hope she doesn't have any stairs.

So last week he decided he wanted to bake a cake to take over to his lady friend. I knew it was going to end badly when he poured orange juice into the double boiler instead of milk, because both cartons were the same shape and he got confused. What was he doing with the double boiler? Well at one point he wandered downstairs and started rooting around in one of the toolboxes. After a few minutes, we heard a loud smashing noise on the stairs. This alarmed me, so I had to go see what part of baking a cake involved banging on the stairs.

He was breaking up a giant brick of chocolate, with a hammer, on the stairs.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at how bad the cake smelled when it was done.
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