I remember him telling me about a dog he'd had as a kid. The story goes that this dog was the ugliest, oldest, most pea-brained dog ever. The dog was incontinent, dribbling urine wherever it went. Its teeth were rotted in its mouth, its hips were fused solid with arthritis, and huge fatty tumors lumped under its hide. One day my Gandpa Plum took the dog out behind the garage and shot it. I suspected there were times when my father fantasized a similar ending for my Gandma Mazur.
-One for the Money

Two year ago, when Gandpa Mazur's fat-clogged arteries sent him to the big pot-roast in the sky, Grandma Mazur had moved in with my parents and never moved out. My father accepted this with a combination of Old-World stoicism and tactless mutterings.
-One for the Money

"I imagine you got a house of your own?"
Fred gummed some of the grey glop. "Nope. I just got a room at Senior Citizens. I sure would like to have a house though. I'd like to marry someone like Sweetie here, and I'd be happy to move right in. I'd be quiet too. You wouldn't hardly know I was here."
"Over my dead body," my father said. "You can take your teeth and get the hell out of here. You're nothing but a goddamn gold digger."
Fred opened his eyes wide in alarm. "I can't get out of here. I haven't had dessert yet. Sweetie promised me dessert. And besides, I don't have a ride back to the Seniors."
"Call him a cab," my father ordered. "Stephanie, go call him a cab. Ellen, wrap up his dessert."
Ten minutes later Fred was on his way.
-Three to Get Deadly

"I need one of those jerseys," Grandma said. "Bet I'd have men following me down the block if I was dressed up like that."
"Stiva, the undertaker," my father murmured from the living room, head buried in a paper. "With his tape measure."
-Four to Score

Grandma Mazur came to live with my parents several years ago when my grandpa Mazur went to the big poker game in the sky. My mother accepts this as a daughter's obligation. My father had taken to reading Guns & Ammo.
-High Five

My father hunkered lower over his plateful of food and mumbled something indiscernible except for the words... crazy old bat.
-Seven Up

When my grandmother came to live with my parents, my mother stopped storing the rat poison in the garage. Not that my father would actually take to poisoning my grandmother, but why tempt fate? Better to store the rat poison at my cousin Betty's house.
-To the Nines