[Everyone's got a morning-after story and we wanna hear yours! Send it over to us and we'll post it - anonymously, of course - right here!]

I love grandmas.  Most of the time they are cute, harmless, and give you cards on your birthday with a five-dollar bill stuffed inside (which is promptly spent at Happy Hour).  They cook you meatballs, pass down ugly sweaters (that earn you the best-dressed title at the annual Ugly Sweater Party), and say the nicest things when you are convinced life is in WWIII with you.  So, yes, it has been fairly established that Grandmas are the bomb.com.  But as wonderful as they are and as much as you just wanna pinch their wrinkley little cheeks every time you see them, there is a time and a place for grandmas.

And that is not standing over my bed in the morning, after a night of doing Jell-O shots.

Let me explain:

I had been seeing a boy in the Air Force. We’d hang out and make wonderful memories when he was on leave and visiting home, and then I’d be free as a bird when he had to go back. It was fun while he was here, and it was fun when he was gone. On one particular visit home he had a party at his brother’s house the night he returned. I went, obviously, and enjoyed many shots of Grey Goose while sexily locking eyes with my Air Force stud from across the room. Eventually, he returned the look, came over and promptly led me to his room.

I don’t remember much of what happened after that, but I know it was probably great. I mean, the guy had Air Force abs; even just letting me rub my hands all over them would have been enough for me.

The next thing I remember was waking up from a nightmare starring Mrs. Doubtfire. For some reason she was yelling at me to get up. In my dream I contemplated slapping her and demanding she confess she was actually Robin Williams in a fat suit. And then reality woke me from my disoriented slumber.

Reality in grandmother form, I’d like to add.

Turns out, it wasn’t a dream at all. And it wasn’t Robin Williams in a wig. There, standing over the bed and yelling at me, was a real, live grandma. She was, petite, wrinkly, gray, and pissed. She was screaming the boy’s name I was laying next too so frantically she sounded like a deranged squirrel.

“Get UP. Clean up this mess!  Right now! Get UP!”

It took me a moment to realize what was going on. I looked at her. I looked at him. I looked down at myself…completely naked and sprawled out like a horny starfish. I grabbed the covers and pulled them up over my head; maybe she wouldn’t see me under there? I didn’t know if I wanted to cry, scream, or be re-baptized.  What I did know was that the oxygen was running out under the covers and if Grandma didn’t leave soon, I would die in that bed.

My Air Force boy slowly rose from bed, totally casual. You know, as if it was just another hungover Saturday and he was gonna grab a G2. Not like his very own grandmother wasn’t hovering over us, reminding me that I wasn’t even wearing socks. Anyone in their right mind would be absolutely traumatized for life by this, except him. (I guess it’s all that “be ready for anything” training he had gotten?)

He walked out of the room, his grandma following him out.
I pulled back the covers, grabbed my things and ran the hell out of there faster than I’d ever run before.

I’ll never look at a grandma the same again.

Every week, CC and John bring you some of the weirdest, funniest, and saddest things he hears on his college campus. And we know he’s not the only one who hears this stuff. Join the Overheard revolution! Leave your own overheard convos in the comments or send ‘em over!

(Guy, at a dining hall’s table, eating dinner.)

Guy: Isn’t what we call cauliflower just effeminate broccoli?

(Guys in a public library.)

Guy: So I was reading The Babysitter’s Club, and I guess Grandma had a really cool secret. But chapter books are too much for me these days, so I just flipped to the back to find out what it was. Turns out Grandma just had breast cancer.

(Guy, walking on the beach.)

Guy: I’m Tin Pin Bill. See, they used to call me  Crim Pin Bill, but that didn’t really make any sense.

(Girl, two guys in a coffee shop.)

Girl: Yeah, I’m not on birth control.

Guy: You should probably get on that. I hear this year’s freshman class is the most fertile ever. Yup, highest SAT scores and most virile.

(Girl, standing in line in the student union food court.)

Girl: My cousin thinks Minas Tirith is a real place, and he wants to get married there.

(Two girls, talking in the hallway.)

Girl 1: How’s community college?

Girl 2: Oh, it’s okay. It’s  full of enormous a**hole douchebags. Of course, not really. But when I say that I mean yes, really.

(Girl, chatting before a sociology class.)

Girl: It’s fine, you wouldn’t understand. We women communicate via ovum anyway.

(Guy, talking at a party.)

Guy: I can’t wait! In the future, we’ll just reproduce  by bumping into each other!

(Guy, explaining something to his girlfriend.)

Guy: In Europe, they count backwards from infinity to zero.

Girl: No they don’t. That’s stupid.

Guy: Yeah. You got me.

(Girl, reading a book.)

Girl: Oh! Yeah, see, the best part about all this is, you can use your best friends as giant missiles.

(Guy, yelling in a field outside a class building.)

Guy: Hey… hey, you! You! Anyone! Does anyone hate Teletubbies as much as I do?

[I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the epitome of prim and proper- heck, who really is nowadays? But looking around at the misguided youths of today *ahem drinking buddies*, I’m starting to think that Miss Manners might have been onto something.

While you may never need to know how to greet a duke or how to tell which fork is REALLY the oyster fork, knowing how to deal with people whom owe you money, how much to tip, and how to address the ever annoying licorice-in-teeth conundrum without being rude might actually come in handy in the real world. I'm not trying to be your mother - oh goodness, no - I'm just here to help you out of those little etiquette dilemmas. So here goes: a quick lesson in etiquette. The sh*t you might actually need to know.]

This past weekend, my bf invited me to have Easter dinner with his family. After already weaseling my way out of both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, I knew I was going to have to come up with a GOOD excuse this time. Unfortunately, he caught me off guard and I think I stammered something along the lines of “Er… can’t…. brother… stay home… babysit… sorry!” into the phone. His response? “Great! Bring him with you.” Crap. So in honor of my 2 hours of awkwardness (kidding!!! uh..sorta), here is how to manage:

1. Milk your boyfriend.
[NO! Not like that! Put the udder down!] I meant for information. This is something I didn’t do but should have. It’s always good to know about his grandmother’s shopping addiction and his uncle’s super conservative political stance (“Of course I voted for McCain, Uncle Bob” *cough cough*) beforehand. Okay, so maybe you don’t have to get too personal with your digging (Great Aunt Ethel’s stomach issues), but always inquire about family traditions and taboo discussion topics before the meal. It helps to be prepared.

2. Greet each family member personally.
I know you want to suck up to his parents, but don’t forget the rest of the family. Be polite when introducing yourself and be prepared for anything from handshakes to hugs and kisses.

3. “Mr. and Mrs.”
I get it, we’re growing up. Even though Mr. and Mrs. Jones might feel more like Mike and Sue to you, greet them with respect and treat them as Mr. and Mrs. until they give you permission to refer to them otherwise.

4. Be prepared for 50,0000 questions
You’re the new girl and as such you will attract a crowd of curious family members like, well, a new girlfriend. Expect to be asked a million questions. Sample: “How long have you known blahblah?” “What are you majoring in?” “How old are you really?” “How many kids do you plan on having?” and “What are your intentions with my son?”

5. Stay out of family drama.
When drunken Uncle Bob gets into a heated argument with Grandpa about gay marriages, stay out of it. Your first meet-the-family function should definitely not be the time to seem disagreeable or garner enemies. If you must voice your opinion, make sure they know that you are well informed about the topic. Don’t get involved in age-old drama either. Smile and wait until the topic changes.

6. Bring a share-able gift
You certainly aren’t obliged to bring a gift, but if you do make sure it is something that can be enjoyed by everyone there. The clichéd bottle of wine will work just fine, but only if you are of legal drinking age (trust me, you don’t want to have to explain to his mom how you obtained the item in question. Plus it’ll make her wonder if you’re a drinker, which is never good.) If you’re a baker, bring desserts for everyone! Be creative. I love making chocolates, so I made a bunch of white chocolate candies for his family. So what if I chickened out and never took them out of my bag? It’s the thought that counts right?

7. Don’t drink…
Too much. Enough said.

Bottom line is, no matter how much you try to fight it, meeting the parents is pretty much inevitable. Just be yourself and when it’s all said and done, be grateful that you finally went through it – your man will find ways to thank you later.

Leave your own overheard convos in the comments.]

“I got straight A’s this semester. Well, and I gotta pee.”

“What?”

“I gotta pee. You gotta pee too.”

“All I want for Christmas is a boy on top of me.”

“Grandma, you need to know this stuff! Otherwise you’ll get roofied!”

“Well, it sounds exciting! I’d rather get roofied than… I don’t know, doofied.”

“This is a cute naked girl. She looks like you.”

“Yeah, Mom, isn’t it a nice Christmas card?”

“Didn’t your friends send you naked girls for your birthday, too?”

“… Yeah.”

“Honey, are you bisexual?”

“Mom!”

“How about that sultry duet with the dark-voiced date rapist trying to convince his sloshed female companion to stay in because it’s cold outside?”

“You mean ‘Let It Snow’?”

“Tommy’s very bright for his age. Four years old, he’s reading already, he’s doing very well in pre-school, smarter than most of the other kids in the class – Tommy, get that motorcycle out of your mouth!”

“Greatest movie ever made? Top Gun. No question.”

“Really? Isn’t it all just homoerotic beach volleyball scenes?”

“Well… yeah. That’s what it is, if that’s what you want it to be.”

“I don’t understand this Christmas card. Why did you just draw… a black man under some mistletoe?”

The worst part of Thanksgiving is the dogs. Everyone has that one relative with a German shepherd, two Corgis and a Schnoodle/Pug mix. Some of us have more than one of these relatives, and some of us have many, many more than one. Some of these relatives have named their dogs Bill O’Reilly. All of these relatives arrive at every holiday party.

But you can’t just tell someone that you don’t like their dogs. There is no greater insult around the Thanksgiving table; you may as well have stuffed, dressed and roasted nephew Kenny.

Political beliefs work the same way, and in some ways are more annoying, because there’s no practical limit to how many you can stuff into the same party, and they’re usually invisible, unless Uncle Joe’s got some kind of witty hat (“Republicans Screw The Country, Democrats Usually Raise Taxes”).

And so you’ve got Grandma’s staunch Grand Old Politics jumping on your new dress and cousin Laura’s furious socialist anarchism taking up all the space on the couch and Teddy and Ralph are barking and howling about the liberal media and you can’t just shoot them.

So you’ve got to find a non-violent, pleasant solution to the problem. Just how do you deal with divergently political relatives?

The simple Thanksgiving solution is to compliment their cooking. This isn’t always easy, because people will put anything in a pie these days, and it might be compliment enough to even swallow Aunt Maura’s green bean and rhubarb casserole. But a quick white lie can be an effective deterrent to all-out family feuding (“All I’m saying is that they should learn to speak English — ” “Oh, Maura, I just love the way you’ve pickled the rhubarb!”).

Dropping the ‘willful ignorance’ bomb might sting, especially when this is the year for politically passionate young people, but it’s an acceptable Big Red Button when the situation gets too dire. Refuse to know anything about anyone, anywhere: just for today, you don’t talk about foreign politics, which includes anything outside the circumference of the pumpkin pie.

Alternately, you can simply pretend you’ve got wildly inconsistent political beliefs and simply agree with everything. Play it off as a product of your age: all that multi-tasking us young folk do has taught us to radically re-align our world view every five minutes, and maybe Grandpa will be impressed and give you ten dollars or something.

If you think you’ve got the wit, you can try taking both sides at once. Try playing devil’s advocate, but do it with such dripping sarcasm that your allies think you’re hilarious and your enemies just agree with you. After all, if people disagree with your political beliefs, it’s because they’re stupid, right? They’ll never catch on (“O’Reilly? He’s a genius! He’s got the sexiest pout on TV!”)

Finally, you can try to appeal to the elementary spirit of the day: we should cast aside our grievances and unite in the common spirit of thanks.

But who’s going to buy that?

Sometimes it seems like the only thing keeping the family together is the dogs.

What better way is there to celebrate than with a delicious, Grandma-worthy pumpkin pie? This one looks, tastes and smells like the real thing and you’ll get it done (and impress your friends and family) in 5 steps:

You Will Need:

1 frozen 9″ pie crust

1 can of Pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filler!)

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

2 eggs

1 and a half teaspoons of cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. of ginger

3/4 tsp. of nutmeg

Preheat your oven to 425.

In a large bowl, mix all of your ingredients.

Pour into the pie crust.

Bake 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and continue baking for 35 minutes.

When your pie is done (A toothpick should come out clean if you stick it into the center), remove it from the oven and let it cool for 10-15 minutes.

Slice that bad boy up and top it with some whipped cream. Pour yourself a glass of your fave apple cider (spiked or not, depending on how festive you’re feeling) and devour sweet autumn deliciousness.

[head photo from canadianwinter.ca]

So, let’s bring it all out in the open. Right here. Because you are not alone - we’ve all been there before.]

The Awkward Call:

You wake up to the sunlight shining into your eyes. You open them and – whoa – the killer hangover sets in. Headache, nausea and a mouth filled with cotton. And then you roll over to find a man lying next to you.

And the entire evening comes flooding back: the drinks, the sloppy make out sesh in the kitchen of the bar, the striptease in the cab.

You lift the covers; yup, completely naked. Your bedmate stirs, opens his eyes and smiles at you. “Phew,” you think to yourself. “He’s pretty cute.” You begin the usual morning-after conversation – hangovers, “what the hell did I drink last night”s, and other niceties – before he starts rubbing your back.

You know where this is leading, but before things start heading there you need to brush that so-drunk-I-smoked- a-cigarette taste out of your mouth.

And then the phone rings. Your rifle through the pile of jeans and underwear on the floor and flip it open before you realize who it is: your grandma.

“Good morning honey! How are you?” Oh. My. God.

“How was your night last night? Are you in the library? Why are you whispering? How is all that studying coming along? What are you doing? Are you making me proud, you big college student?”

OhMyGodThisIsSoAwkward.

“Hi grandma,” you respond, sinking back into the bed.

You realize the severity of the situation – random dude next to you…naked…and your freaking grandma on the phone – but what are you supposed to do? You can’t hang up on grandma.

“Yeah, things are good… Yeah, I am studying…. No, I stayed in last night and caught up on my reading…Yeah, I know; school is really important.”

Eventually, after your grandpa and aunt have chimed in to say hello, you convince dear grandma that you must get back to the books (or that boy in the buff next to you) and end the most awkward conversation of all time. But the moment is lost. There is no way on earth you can do the naughty now.

Yeah, we’ve been there…and it sucks.

Well, she didn’t. I never got to taste this mythical culinary delight. However, I often wondered if my grandma, who was a bright and feisty little thing, if she was tricking them into remembering it more fondly than they would have if she’d kept making it.

I’ve never been able to track down my grandma’s recipe, but I was able to find something comparable–and I gotta tell you, for cake, it’s amazingly low-fat. It’s also amazingly delicious.

So, have at ye, apple cake lovers! Make my grandma proud! (Eat, eat, you’re all skin and bones!)

Not Quite My Grandma’s Apple Cake

(serves 10)

Stuff That Goes In It

2 1/2 cups of chopped, cored apples

2/3 cups of packed brown sugar

1 cup of flour

1 cup of whole wheat flour

1/4 cup of margarine

1 1/2 cups of buttermilk

1 tablespoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of salt

This Is How We Do It, Baby

(1) Mix the sugar, margarine, and buttermilk with an electric mixer in a big ol’ bowl.

(2) Add the baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, apples, salt, and both kinds of flours to the mix. Stir that shiz like mad till blended.

(3) Spray non-stick stuff into a square 8-inch baking pan.

(4) Spread the mixture into the pan and even it out.

(5) Put the pan in the oven and bake it at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes (or until you stick in a toothpick at the center and it’s clean when you pull it out).

(6) Enjoy!! (And no regrets–yay low-fat!)

[Image courtesy of www.delsole.co.uk]

Flickr is a crazy little website. Pictures from all over the world, from crappy and boring “here’s me on the lawn, now here’s me laughing on the lawn” photos to beautiful, artist renderings of pristine landscapes — everything is contained, and easy to find, on this user friendly website.

Why, Flickr is so simple and easy even your grandma could do it!

And someone’s grandma certaily has.

I really can’t say how our office stumbled across this set of photos, but I can say that after searching through about 100 of them, I have never wished there was eye sanitizer more than at this exact moment. I mean…what.the.hell.IS.this?!

She calls herself a MILF (but judging by the photos she really could be a GILF), she has single-handedly killed off an entire herd of cows in order to cover her body with piece after piece of uber tight leather, her “provocative” posing looks more like she A) got clubbed in both kneecaps by the mafia, B) is getting arrested by invisible cop ghosts, or C) is just standing around staring at the wall, and she doesn’t show her entire face but certainly shows enough to be recognized (if god is merciful not by her kids).

In today’s society, anyone with a camera and the ability to upload hundreds upon hundreds of pictures can become a star, and “LeatherChrissy” certainly seems to have the panache to rocket her “mature MILF” status to computer screens everywhere.

My brain is currently malfunctioning (too many images I never wanted to view have been viewed), so I can’t quite figure out what the moral to this story is…but I guess if I had to take a guess? Don’t leave gran home with the digital camera.

[PS: someone in our office was certain LeatherChrissy was this lady...I don't think so. Because if it was, the earth would be exploding right now from incomprehensible ridiculousness]

Whether she wanted it or not, this Grandma got something rather unusual for her b-day.

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