It was getting close to my birthday. I was going to be 18 years old in mid August. The summer was coming to an end but not soon enough. The bees in August are vicious and abundant. Mom was taking me up town to drop me off at Babcia's little apartment. I was going to take her on her bi-weekly grocery and beer run. When we got to the M & I bank we noticed that there was a car exactly like grandma's with a little old lady driving that appeared to look exactly like Babcia.
Mom speed up to catch up with the bronze Dodge vehicle and sure enough it was Babcia. She was driving in the parking lane of the two-way street. Passing parked cars and beeping her horn, she yelled so loud with her window down to the parked cars things that were not meant to be translated into English. She even flipped the bird to the empty cars. "You drive so slow...You must be in 100's." "Speed up. Your driving so slow it is like you are not evening moving." Well they weren't moving and in fact nobody was even in the cars. "They must be dwarfs driving these cars. They can't even see them behind the steering wheel."
Oh, Babcia. Oh dear sweet Babcia. Okay, maybe not so sweet. After all she did have the mouth of a sailor, a Polish speaking sailor. We attempted to keep up with Babcia to see where she was going with her Lutheran friend, Edna. Mom would not drive over the speed limit of 25 miles an hour and Babcia, as she told me many times before, thought that was just a suggestion. You have to at least go 25 miles an hour. Luckily, for us we finally caught to the speed demon, who was cruising at 45 miles hour. I say lucky because there was no space between the five cars parked by the city park. She was not going to pass five cars at a time. Heaven forbid that...she wasn't crazy just having a little Alzheimer's problem. We pulled up behind the bronze dodge four-dour vehicle and started getting out of the car. Babcia was yelling in Polish of course, "Why aren't these cars moving. I can't believe we are stuck in a traffic jam. Damn rush hour."
Our town only had rush hour when the high school students got let out in the afternoons while school is in session. But she thought what she thought and verbalized it. Her Lutheran friend Edna couldn't hear and did not know a lick of Polish. Edna was German and could feel that Babcia was upset. SO, she started yelling in German. She became pissed for absolutely no reason. It was rough. Babcia had her windows still down so that everyone could hear her rants. We started heading to the driver's side to talk to Babcia when she slammed her had down on the dashboard. Breaking her frail little Polish hand, the hand swelled up instantly. Babcia yelled even louder. She was even more pissed. Babcia exited the vehicle and slammed the door. She noticed her swollen hand and said, "that damn bee!"
We thought she meant "b", you know short for bitch. She yelled again that damn bee stung me. Look at my hand. It is swollen up like the blackhead on my dupa." Babcia had lost her mind a long time ago but now it was beyond ever being found. Mom and I attempted to calm Babcia down. We called an ambulance to pick her up. She swore that grandpa on his death bed had transmitted the heredity gene of being allergic to bees onto her. She told the paramedics that a bee had stung her. So, they prepared an Epi-pen for her.
Mom blurted out, "She isn't allergic to bees. Her arm is swollen but it is because she hit it on the dashboard."
Babcia got even more pissed. "It was a bee I tell you. It was a bee. A huge bee. One of those killer bees from Mexico. But I got it. I slammed my hand down on that bee and brought it to it's demise."
As Babcia was yelling at everyone, a big bee flew out of her car. "Damn, It has a twin."
