The Joy of Passive-Aggressive Grandmothers

Some grandmothers are known for their warmth, affection and scrumptious oatmeal cookies.  My Grandma Kirby, on the other hand, is known for her aversion to hugs or any kind of family intimacy, really, and habit of giving used gifts (a certified pack rat, I guess she couldn’t bear to throw out the five-year-old tennis balls, old socks or rust-covered earrings — I kid you not — she has so generously passed down to me through the years) and mailing pointed articles she’s ripped from the newspaper to family members in need of her passive-aggressive guidance.  One that immediately springs to mind is an article I received about “the sinful dangers of living together before marriage” when Mr. Candy and I were — you guessed it — sinfully and, evidently, dangerously living together before we got married.  Now, the woman never said a word about her concerns to my face.  Oh no.  She let an advice column from the Arlington Connection do the tsk-tsking for her.  The takeaway:  Mr. Candy was using me for sex.  Which is just ridiculous.  Anybody who really knew us, and the relationship we shared, could see I was the one using HIM for sex.  Duh.

Such is my long-winded explanation of why I have been giggling about this submission to PassiveAggressiveNotes.com:

“My grandmother has been telling my brother that his hair is too long for forever now,” our submitter in Texas writes, “and whenever she criticized his long hair, he’d tell her it was ‘in style.’”  Hello, loophole! Today Grandma left this clipping on the fridge for her grandson to find.

Because if a teenage boy is going to turn to anybody for style advice, it is going to be his grandmother.  (I feel your pain, Seth.)