To help her calm down, Gritty offered Diane her choice of Vanity Fair magazines from his 1996 collection. He had a great deal of sympathy for his sister. She was basically a volunteer halfling in a world of compulsory giants. His niece and nephew kept asking why he had a pillow case full of tennis balls.
“It’s because I have a pillow fight at 4:30 with the Houston Orbit,” Gritty admitted. “And while I hesitate to disgrace our family with blatancy in a corked pillow-duel, I also refuse to join the 27 club by ignoring Grandpa’s adage: ‘Never bring down-feathers to a broken ashtray fight!’”
Two years ago, a pair of tennis balls had padded Grandpa’s walker from scratching the hardwood floors. Gritty reflected on tennis as one of only two sports in which the balls became more widespread than the activity itself. The other, he figured, was probably hunting.
“Take care of your Mom this weekend. If she gets arrested at the Condé Nast building, skype the Phanatic for some water-ice money and empty the drier-lint into Mrs. Caldwell’s mailbox—she’s working on a tapestry of the Bristol latex spill.” [To Be Continued…]
