Grandma and her Ugly Bride Book
In Grandma’s later years, she developed a few quirks, one of which was the creation of an Ugly Bride Book.
Her Ugly Bride Book was just a spiral notebook in which she pasted the pictures of brides who’d been published in the local papers.
Grandma, who loved everybody, who only showed kindness and understanding to all people, obviously had a problem with ugly brides.
By the time we found her Ugly Bride Book, she’d been working on it for a few years. It was almost filled with pictures she’d cut out from the papers and then pasted on the blue-lined sheets of paper. She had also added her commentary which wasn’t very nice.
(Shame on you Grandma!)
One page showed a beaming bride who was, let’s say, more than plump. Grandma, who wasn’t exactly skinny herself, commented:
Look at that arm! It’s as big as a ham hock. Why would she wear a halter dress with those huge arms hanging out when a small caplet sleeve would have been much more flattering?
Another entry showed a bride who had somehow missed what should have been mandatory orthodontic appointments.
Comments: She’s smiling a big wide smile so that we don’t miss the fact that she doesn’t have a single straight tooth in her mouth. Count her teeth…I think she’s got a double row of them. Why didn’t the photographer tell her to take a pensive pose and hide those teeth.
The overly made-up bride:
He’s going to get one hell of a surprise if she ever washes her face!
Bulging belly bride:
This one has got to be pregnant. Why else should she have so much belly? A girdle would have helped smooth out the front of her gown. Way too much beading.
Bride and groom with short dark bangs, big round glasses and pointy chins:
These two look like brother and sister. This could be an ad for incest.
Lots of cleavage bride:
Those things should be covered up more if she’s married in a church. She looks like she’s been around the block but notice her pure white gown and virginal smile. I never saw cleavage like that. At least she has a place to put her bouquet if she gets tired of carrying it around.
Bride with long pointy nose:
He didn’t marry a woman, he married a nose.
Every picture had a comment from sweet Grandma that wasn’t sweet at all.
Grandma was up in years so we didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but it was so out of character that this gentle, loving person would spend time cutting out pictures from the paper and adding her not-so-nice commentary – so we asked: “What made you create this scrapbook, Grandma?”
“Too much time on my hands,” was her reply.
“No really, you love everybody and never say a bad word about anybody, so why this?”
“Oh one day I was reading the paper and saw a picture of a bride whose face would stop a clock and I said to myself, I have got to cut this one out and keep it.”
We looked at her skeptically.
“And, it also reminds me there is always someone out there to love you, even if you are ugly. I get lonely sometimes since your Grandpa died, and I’m no beauty and never have been, so maybe it’s a way to have some hope I’ll meet a man someday who could love me as I am. Yeah, that’s it.”
We didn’t believe her, but we also couldn’t come up with a better explanation for Grandma’s Ugly Bride Book.
Can you?
In Grandma’s later years, she developed a few quirks, one of which was the creation of an Ugly Bride Book.
Her Ugly Bride Book was just a spiral notebook in which she pasted the pictures of brides who’d been published in the local papers.
Grandma, who loved everybody, who only showed kindness and understanding to all people, obviously had a problem with ugly brides.
By the time we found her Ugly Bride Book, she’d been working on it for a few years. It was almost filled with pictures she’d cut out from the papers and then pasted on the blue-lined sheets of paper. She had also added her commentary which wasn’t very nice.
(Shame on you Grandma!)
One page showed a beaming bride who was, let’s say, more than plump. Grandma, who wasn’t exactly skinny herself, commented:
Look at that arm! It’s as big as a ham hock. Why would she wear a halter dress with those huge arms hanging out when a small caplet sleeve would have been much more flattering?
Another entry showed a bride who had somehow missed what should have been mandatory orthodontic appointments.
Comments: She’s smiling a big wide smile so that we don’t miss the fact that she doesn’t have a single straight tooth in her mouth. Count her teeth…I think she’s got a double row of them. Why didn’t the photographer tell her to take a pensive pose and hide those teeth.
The overly made-up bride:
He’s going to get one hell of a surprise if she ever washes her face!
Bulging belly bride:
This one has got to be pregnant. Why else should she have so much belly? A girdle would have helped smooth out the front of her gown. Way too much beading.
Bride and groom with short dark bangs, big round glasses and pointy chins:
These two look like brother and sister. This could be an ad for incest.
Lots of cleavage bride:
Those things should be covered up more if she’s married in a church. She looks like she’s been around the block but notice her pure white gown and virginal smile. I never saw cleavage like that. At least she has a place to put her bouquet if she gets tired of carrying it around.
Bride with long pointy nose:
He didn’t marry a woman, he married a nose.
Every picture had a comment from sweet Grandma that wasn’t sweet at all.
Grandma was up in years so we didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but it was so out of character that this gentle, loving person would spend time cutting out pictures from the paper and adding her not-so-nice commentary – so we asked: “What made you create this scrapbook, Grandma?”
“Too much time on my hands,” was her reply.
“No really, you love everybody and never say a bad word about anybody, so why this?”
“Oh one day I was reading the paper and saw a picture of a bride whose face would stop a clock and I said to myself, I have got to cut this one out and keep it.”
We looked at her skeptically.
“And, it also reminds me there is always someone out there to love you, even if you are ugly. I get lonely sometimes since your Grandpa died, and I’m no beauty and never have been, so maybe it’s a way to have some hope I’ll meet a man someday who could love me as I am. Yeah, that’s it.”
We didn’t believe her, but we also couldn’t come up with a better explanation for Grandma’s Ugly Bride Book.
Can you?
posted by mary bishop | 10:09 AM
15 Comments:
This is hilarious. You're grandmother must have been a real corker! I'v been reading your stories and they should be in a book.
That's incredibly funny!
But I guess everyone needs an outlet for snarkiness. I think your grandmother started a trend, that later materialized itself into blogs like "Go Fug Yourself" and "Celebrity Smack". Come to think of it, she should have had her own blog!
Irina hit that one on the head! Grandma was before her time!
MB -
I usually LOVE your grandma stories...I felt kind of torn on this one...I for the first time found grandma's comments to be a bit egregious...
I still love grandma..but I didn't have a favorite line in this one :)
Bradley
The Egel Nest
Thanks anonymous. I'm putting these stories together for the family. She was a unique person.
Irina..you might be right..G'ma could have been a judge on American Idol too! Seriously, I think when she got older she got a bit odd - I still can't figure her out as she was truly a person who loved and helped everyone. But maybe even the best people need to have a snarky side!
Lawbrat - she was ahead of her time - here's an example, she gave $500 to Aids research in the mid 80s when people were saying Aids was a gay man's disease. She wrote in her diary: Viruses don't attack people for moral purposes. (She had a daughter who had polio and at that time they called polio a dirty person's disease which frosted G'ma's cookies.)
Bradley - I know what you mean. But I don't want to write a G'ma fairy tale - I want to show her at her best and worst. I don't know what it's like to be in your seventies and how the brain changes - I don't know if she was too good and needed an outlet to be bad. I don't know why she created this book...which is why I wrote about it. Totally out of character for her is all I can say!
Great story!! Even the nicest of people still have opinions and unfortunately they aren't always flattering. I figure it's all equal in the world. That it's all equal, I can make comments, comments can be made about me. At least Grandma's comments are clever and witty!!
Wow! Considering there are people around today, that are not much older than I that still think AIDS is related to being gay, no matter what the actual facts are.
Go Grandma Go!!
AMK - I thing about G'ma -- she was rather unique. I put "Ugly Bride Book" in Google just to see if anything would come up and nada.
Lawbrat - we were proud she did that. She thought for herself and helped shape all her female descendants. (male too I'm sure)
Sangroncito - Me too, I miss mine. Actually, I prefer quirky people to the ones that are so perfect in every way.
sorry One thing...
Your Grandma has outdone herself. She definately should have had a blog of herself.
I think it's true, that the older you get, the more you change. Most people become "softer", like my granddad did. Who would have thot that the person who would throw his sons to the wall for not eating breakfast and later in life would ride his bike to the store in a thunderstorm to buy sweets for his grandkids were the same person.
Along - I've always thought the same thing! Grandma would have loved blogging. She'd have been all over blogland giving out recipes and advice.
Oh, I love it. Everyone has a little nastiness in us, even the best and sweetest person. It's good to see that Grandma had it in an open and healthy manner. I love her!
Echrai - one thing I didn't want to do with these stories is turn devilish Grandma into a sanctimonious saint...sometimes we tend to do that with people who have died, but she'd come back and slap me if I did that!
Hey, I love your grandma because she was real. I like her excuse as well as Irinas.
I thought it was funny. It's not like she posted them for all to see, it was privately her little outlet.
I think I'm a nice person but this had me laughing.
Dashababy - I've missed you!
So glad to see you stop by...and thanks for reminding me, this was a private personal scrapbook she created, never expecting me to publish her words many years later on a blog.
Sometimes I forget this fact...
Post a Comment
<< Home