“My six-year old brother Ethan’s always got his nose in a sports book or the sports pages of a newspaper, even in the car on the way to school. He insists on telling me about last night’s games or how many home runs some guy has or who got the winning hit. I honestly don’t care and I even tell him, nicely at first. He gets mad and tries to make me listen and that makes me even madder. I cover my ears and just tune him out. I look over and he’s crying. He just doesn’t get why I’m not interested in anything about sports unless it has to do with running, which I’m good at. My grandma tries to explain that everyone has different interests and that he doesn’t like some of the things I do. We’re just different, but unique in our own ways, she says. He still doesn’t get it and we start fighting in the car, pushing and shoving and yelling at each other. Then Grandma gets mad and tells us she can’t concentrate on driving and we might wind up having an accident. She talks about how much traffic there is and how she’s about to go crazy, even more so than usual. It’s a long drive and I know she’s right, but I still can’t tolerate my brother’s sports mania.”
“I wish my sister Morgan loved sports the way I do. I have lots of interests, like geography, reading, camping, drawing, playing games, and even walking around labyrinths, but I get excited about the Twins and Vikings and Packers and even the Brewers. My grandma’s always talking about the latest statistics and now I’m interested too. I like looking through the Minneapolis paper and reading all about last night’s games. We even look at the attendance in different cities. My grandma laughed when I read the headline about the “damned Yankees” coming to town for the playoffs. How can I not get excited about that? I just wish my sister tried to understand me more. Grandma gets upset when I lose my temper; she says I need to “catch myself” before it happens. I try and I think I’m getting better, but it’s still hard. I just wish that Morgan cared a little bit about sports.”
As a grandma who’d rather avoid conflict at any cost, I decided to try something a little unusual; the normal admonishments and pleas for peace and cooperation weren’t working. We were sitting at a stoplight, caught in the middle of a major traffic jam on a county highway. I called back to the kids: “Listen you guys, I can see the lady in the car behind us and she’s looking really crabby. I bet she’s not thrilled about going to her job after a nice three-day weekend and here she’s stuck in traffic. Then she looks at the car ahead of her and sees you guys fighting. She’s probably thinking, “That’s IT, what am I doing here—I hate this stress. LET ME OUT OF HERE!
Morgan and Ethan turned their heads to look at the crabby lady and started laughing. The fighting stopped and they were busy looking at cars in every direction. They were checking out the faces of the people on their way to work or wherever.
“Oh look at that one, Morgan said. He looks crabby too. I bet he doesn’t want to go to work either.”
And on and on it went. They had invented a new game and the focus shifted. They were happy checking out people who were noticeably crabby. To their credit, they did acknowledge a few smiling faces. I said they were probably listening to their favorite music.
A short time later we arrived at school and as they headed out the door I said, “Today’s theme is STAY HAPPY.” Morgan gave me the “oh sure grandma” look. Ethan just smiled. As I drove away from school I imagined their perceptive young faces checking me out in the car and I vowed not to be NOTICEABLY CRABBY, at least not for today.
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