my grandmother and her latest drama

My grandmother lives with my family. She has almost always lived with us since for as long as I can remember and that is not necessarily a good thing. It's actually on the borderline of being really bad right now. There is a reason or several reasons why she doesn't live with the families of my five uncles and aunts. The number one reason being they can't stand her for a long period of time. The other reason being my family is so easily bullied into letting her get away with anything.

You might say "Meh, what can an old, cute looking lady in her nineties do? I'm sure it's not that hard to put up with her". Wrong. My grandmother is the first drama queen I knew of. Everything has to be her way or no way. The latest shenanigan she's gotten into is rather amusing from my perspective. It started with her being her usual unreasonable self and ended with us giving up and letting her do whatever she wants.

My grandmother had a stroke a few months ago which left her at a loss for words. OK, she can't completely use her speech faculty anymore but on a good day when I wake up with lots of patience I can make out half of what she says. One of those "good" day happened to be the day before I had my microbiology exam and was cramming at my desk when she came in with her tale of deceit and unfaithfulness. So basically she told me (more like she talked for a while then I guessed for a while out loud and she would nod or shake her head) that my dad is cheating on my mum with 3 women who come to our house on a regular basis and that they call my dad constantly and he them. It took a long time for what I put down in one sentence to come out of her. Of course I didn't believe her. It just so happened that there are a nurse, a physiotherapist and a speech therapist, all of whom happened to be female, who come to our house at least once a week to help my grandmother rehabilitate into our house after her stroke. There, 3 unknown women all accounted for. Mysteries phone calls were from the hospital telling my dad my grandmother's warfarin levels. Of course I couldn't believe her.

She told my mum the same tale which my mum didn't believe of course. Since nobody believes her my grandmother had nothing else to do but throwing a huge tantrum which involved not talking to anyone, refusing to acknowledge that anyone besides her lived in the same house and staging a hunger strike. Rather infantile behaviours if you ask me but hey it's the cycle of life, you get hellishly childish when you get over 90. My mum gave in before day 1 of the hunger strike even finished. She had to apologise to my grandmother for not believing her and that satisfied my grandmother. Note my mum didn't say that my grandmother was right but it seemed that having someone apologising is enough for her.

That is not the end of that. Since then every time my dad gets a call or calls anyone she would tell me that my dad is talking to his "mistress" and smile a smile that says "you didn't heed my warnings and now that bastard is cheating right under your nose". She's been rather hostile, to put it lightly, towards my dad for a few months now. My dad is the nicest person on Earth, he puts up with her for almost 30 years and she's not even his mother. If it was up to me I would have given up on being nice already.