Now that my house is sold and I’m no longer relatively penniless, I am about to shock the socks off my family. Grandma is getting revved-up to go on a wild and crazy spending spree!  

I have to be careful how I go about it.  I’ve read about cases where pitiful Aunt Penelope gets conned into investing her life savings in, say, the preservation of overstressed houseflies whose lives have been cruelly tormented by an unidentified crazy bloodthirsty murderess in Enumclaw, Washington.

As you well know, Octo-woman would never endorse such a costly hare-brained scheme. She’s way too smart for that.  She likes to contribute to nice comfortable retirement homes for lady bugs and honey bees — never houseflies. And never to sanctuaries for persecuted fleas, cockroaches, mosquitoes, or slugs, even if they are sponsored by Nigerian princes.

Sadly for Aunt Penelope, her family’s intervention following her spending craze can result in confiscated credit cards, as well as imprisonment in her room with nothing but a TV set, a jar of Macademia Nut Clusters, Ruffles potato chips, and prevention of her daily efforts to do the housework, laundry, grocery shopping and cooking. Tragic!

But back to my shopping frenzy. I would like to tell you how much I’m enjoying it, but I won’t lie. Actually, it’s been a real drag.

The first item I’m shopping for is some new wheels. This may surprise you since my driver’s license was confiscated several years ago, and as an upstanding, patriotic citizen, I would never do anything so nefarious as driving without a license, unless I could get away it, which is unlikely in view of my rather well-known driving skills.

As for which wheels I’m currently shopping for – No, it isn’t this one which is my longtime personal favorite . . .

. . . or even a Tesla or a Ferrari or a Harley Davidson, or a 10-speed dirt bike. No, it’s one that looks like this.

I know how shocked you must be since at first glance this one doesn’t seem to meet my impeccable standards for personal style and glamour. However, I intend to remedy the situation at my earliest opportunity. My crochet skills can surely crank out a version like this one. . .

Or for a more elegant Victorian look, this one has an attached GPS, a cow horn, and built-in gramophone.

Or best of all is this one which I’m sure will be attracting a lot of new friends!

The reason I have been forced to make this costly purchase is because of the unreasonable demands of my son Matthew. He seems to think that just because he is disabled, he shouldn’t have to share his walker with his sainted mother. It’s very unfair, if you ask me.

Formerly, my style of walking has been described as that of a penguin, but of late it’s more like the gait of a drunken sailor. In order to stay erect, I am forced to cling for support from walls, furniture, or unsuspecting pedestrians. Thus arose my new habit of relying on Matt’s hardware to lend me a hand – so to speak – and precipitating conversations like this:

Matthew: “Mother, where’s my walker?”
Me: “You mean the walker that’s supposed to be next to your chair?”
Matthew: “No, I mean the walker that disappears ever since you learned to hijack it and then forget where you left it.”
Me: “Don’t be picky. Sharing is caring.”
Matthew: “So are certain priorities. I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM.”

Now I realize that, on occasion, sharing the walker of a disabled person may seem a little unreasonable, and that’s why I decided to acquire – as a humanitarian purchase – a walker of my own on amazom.com. Time will tell if I can learn to drive it! At least, I won’t need a license, so there’s that, at least.

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My second big shopping excursion is for my ears. Get ready to drool over these. This is a pair that cost 57,000 million dollars and they don’t even match. The one on the left is called Apollo Blue and the one on the right is the Artemis Pink. Those are the ones I won’t be getting.

I have an appointment at Costco next week to shop for a pair that’s a little more economical and that may solve problems I keep encountering like this one:

Grandson Bryce: ”Grandma, I think you need to get a hearing aid.”
Me: ”Why do I need to get an earring made?”

Until now, I have been applying a strict rule about my hearing – or lack of. When somebody is talking to me, I never ask ”What?” more than three times. After that, I just give up, nod my head pleasantly, smile in agreement, and hope they didn’t just say “You have something stuck in between your front teeth!”

I have no idea how much these little ear ornaments are going to cost, but I hope it’ll be less than 57 million.