Ooma

My grandmother liked little yellow smiley faces.

That undersells it. Her house held thousands of them. Plates, picture frames, shower curtains, her clothes, the license plate on her car. She had smiley face moccasins she wore around the house.

We called her Ooma.

She was funny in a way that took people a second to catch. If you didn’t know her, you might have thought she was being serious. She never was. If she didn’t like you, she wouldn’t pick on you. She picked on everybody. When she wasn’t giving you a hard time she was the warmest person in the room.

She kept a big M&M statue out on her porch. Not for herself. For the kids getting off the school bus, so she could watch them jump and wave at it. The neighborhood kids called her Ooma too, or Grandma, and she would stop whatever she was doing to talk to them. She saved the teasing for teenagers and adults. To the little ones she was an angel.

If you get quietly insulted by an old woman somewhere on this site, that’s her. Or my best attempt at her.