Day 21: The Fruit Stealer

This morning (my last morning as a non-grown up…work “officially” starts tomorrow) I decided to make banana pancakes.  I go downstairs to whip up some deliciousness and discover that the bananas which were in the fruit basket the night before are gone…in their place…deformed apples. I call Nonna downstairs and ask her where the bananas are.  She naturally starts cracking up (the hyena laugh is not awesome at 7am) and tells me “I hide-a them.”

Me: Why did you hide the bananas?

Nonna: Because my friend she steal them. So when she come over I hide the fruit and put the apples in the basket.  She h-eat at least two peaches or bananas and then she take them for her husband. Ees my money, why I gotta feed her? She no like h-apples so I put them out.

Me: Does she think you are a farmer’s market?

Nonna: It looka like. So, I put the bananas here (she opens her pantry and then opens a large pot…where sure enough, there are the rest of the bananas). You can take but don let her see.

So after my pancakes (yum), I settle down to do a little work…when sure enough, Nonna returns from Church with her friend.  They sit down, drink some coffee and don’t speak to eachother. I watch the fruit stealer carefully, and sure enough, she picks up the apples and examines them. Then the fruit stealer asks “Do you have any peaches Maria.” Nonna says “No, I no have no more.” Then…thinking she is stealth, winks at me in the most obvious way possible.  Feeling the need to justify my grandmother’s lie (and protect my fruit) I chime in and tell her friend that I ate them all. Her friend says “That’s ok…I understand.”  She then asks Nonna for a cup of coffee.  Nonna pours her a cup of coffee and then her friend stands and says that she needs some milk.  She goes over to the fridge and then stands with the fridge door open and scans the items for a little while.  She then gets the milk and sits back down.  I am frantically thinking that she saw my grapes and that she is going to ask for them.  Instead she asks for a piece of cake.

After the fruit stealer leaves…I open the fridge…sure enough, all the fruit that was in the fridge was hidden.  She put the peaches under peppers in the crisper and my grapes under the lunchmeat in a drawer.  I’m beginning to see why Nonna hates her friends…