Saturday, January 17, 2009

The wrath of Nonna

To be fair, I would have to say that for an Italian she is a remarkably even tempered woman, but every once in a while something sparks her ire.

***

It's late in the afternoon when I toss frozen peas into boiling water with my back turned away from the turmoil. Supper is a fiasco since the play dates have over run. As I scurry around the kitchen with Nonna’s assistance, I hear the familiar puffing sounds prior to word production. I catch sight of her out of the corner of my eye, wooden spoon flailing the air in time with her left arm, circling and flapping. I squeak as she taps me on the bottom, more from surprise than any pain, “look at dat!” she growls.
“What?” I follow the spoon’s quaking line. Outside in the garden I see my cat cornered under a lounge chair, backed against a wall. He hisses and spits in response to repeated pokes with the end of a broken fork, I drop the spatula and make for the door but Nonna’s ahead of me, yelling and marching full steam ahead, “wot you tink you do! Hey! Stop dat right dis minute.” I watch from the door way as Nonna charges towards the child still clutching the wooden spoon, valiant defender of all creatures, both great and small. It’s difficult to describe his facial expression, blanched in the shadow of Nonna, in the early evening of twilight.

Now that’s one child that won’t be invited for a return visit.

5 comments:

Angela DeRossett said...

Yowza...that brought chills envisioning my own Italian grandmother with a wooden spoon. You don't get between an Italian woman and her prey.

Jayne said...

Ahhh...memories!
I had at least 3 wooden spoons broken on me during my childhood and I'm only slightly insane due to it lol :P
Good on Nonna!

Anonymous said...

Way to go Nonna.

Niksmom said...

This makes me love Nonna even more!

Patois42 said...

Here's hoping she's discouraged him from ever acting upon his serial killer ways again.

Go Nonna!