Grandma's Revenge

How It All Started: Markus's Shenanigans

It's a known fact that children enjoy hiding.

When Markus was little, he used to love to hide in different spots around the house and jump out and scare me when I least expected it.

I warned him many times that scaring grandma was not as funny as he thought it was. No matter how many times I cautioned him, he insisted on continuing what he felt was a hilarious game.

I would find Markus hiding in closets, underneath tables, and around corners, all while anticipating the joy he would have when he got to scare grandma again.

I think that Markus thought it was hysterically funny not only to scare me, but he would laugh even harder if he got me to say naughty words because he had frightened me so badly. I believe that was his main goal in the scaring game that he would insist on playing almost daily. Get grandma to say naughty words that she shouldn't be saying around children.

One time when he was around five years old he grabbed his favorite Nerf gun and loaded it up.

He went into the bathroom and slid the shower curtain across the railing so that he could climb into the bathtub. He of course closed the curtain back up and waited for me to have to use the restroom.

As I walked into the bathroom, I turned on the light and walked over to the toilet.

Markus waited until he could see my shadow across the shower curtain. Then he quickly opened it up and screamed, "Boo!" He of course shot me with the Nerf gun at the same time and hit me with the dart right square into my chest.

I will completely admit that is one of the times I used naughty words and said to him him, "You little shit! What the hell were you thinking? You really scared grandma! Shame on you! You need to stop this!"

I warned him, "You better watch out! One day I'm going to have enough of your shenanigans and I will get even with you. Age and deceit wins out over youth and dexterity every time buddy! One day you will find this out and you won't be laughing as hard as you are now."

Markus of course laughed hysterically at me and he would wait a few hours, maybe a day, until he could come up with something to scare me again.

Another time when he was five he hid behind my favorite reading chair.

I had the chair sitting catty corner in the living room. It was a couple of feet away from the wall so that I could turn on my reading light and relax and recline as I would enjoy one of my favorite books.

Markus was small enough at the time that he could hide behind the chair and not be seen from any angle in the room.

One day he thought it would be funny to go behind the chair and lay in wait for me to get nice and comfy and relaxed. I pulled out the paper back book that I was reading at the time, found my bookmarked page, and oped it up.

I did as I would usually do and reclined my chair so that I could be really comfy as I enjoyed my story.

I reached over to turn on the light.

As my hand hit the light switch Markus reached out and grabbed my hand and shouted, "Boo! I got you good this time grandma!"

He immediately broke out into laughter that reverberated off of the walls in my small reading room. My poor lamp fell to the floor but thankfully didn't break.

I of course screamed really loudly while almost levitating off of the chair!

Once I had recovered myself and realized that I had indeed not peed my pants, I once again yelled at him. "Markus you little shit! Stop scaring grandma! I don't think it's funny! You better watch out! One day I'm going to have enough of your shenanigans and I will get even with you. Age and deceit wins out over youth and dexterity every time buddy!"

He of course just laid on the floor and continued laughing at me.

As a last example of his behavior, when Markus was about six years old he discovered the cabinet in my kitchen underneath of my microwave. This cabinet had nice wooden double doors on it. It was about 2 ft deep and as tall as the countertop. It was made of oak. There were no shelves in this cabinet and it was meant to put large kitchen accessories so that they would not be taking up the countertop. I mostly used it to store gallon jugs of sanitized water for my fish tank.

I had just cleaned out my fish tank the day before so the cabinet was sitting empty.

While I was outside doing my gardening, Markus got the brilliant idea to get inside of this cabinet.

I came inside the house and went to the bathroom to wash my hands. Then I proceeded to the kitchen for a snack.

I walked over to the cabinet where I kept the microwave popcorn. I pulled out a bag of my favorite Orville Redenbacher Movie Theater Butter popcorn.

I pulled off the plastic wrapper, opened up the bag, and put it in the microwave on the popcorn setting. I waited in expectation for the popcorn to finish popping.

When it was done, I reached inside of the microwave and I took it out by a corner of the bag. I carefully pulled the corners apart so as not to get scalded by the hot steam that rose up with the delicious scent of my much anticipated snack.

Just as the final seal on the bag opened up, my cabinet door came flying open and hits me in the leg as Markus screams , "Boo! I got you Grandma!"

This unforeseen event caused me to scream and jump up into the air, almost hitting my head on the ceiling as popcorn flew all over the kitchen.

As I stood there in shock looking at my floor, counter, and table top that were now all covered with popcorn, Markus was laying half in and half out of the cabinet laughing his head off. He looked up at me with glee on his face as he sprawled there inspecting and laughing at the mess he had caused.

I of course started yelling naughty words at him. "What the hell? Markus! You little shit! You better watch out! One day I'm going to have enough of your shenanigans and I will get even with you. Age and deceit wins out over youth and dexterity every time buddy! One day you will find this out and you won't be laughing as hard as you are now."

While Markus was six, my daughter got married to a very nice wonderful man. This was bittersweet for me because while I was happy for my daughter, I knew that I was going to miss having Markus living with us even if he did cause his daily shenanigans.

I was fortunate enough to teach library at the school he was attending so I would still get to see him every weekday. He would come spend every other weekend at my house where he would run amok and continue his favorite game of scaring grandma.