I don't even remember when I started doing it. I guess maybe a couple of years ago and although I can't recall WHY, it became a favorite "story" that my grandkids like me to tell.
I look at it like harmless fun because little kids like to be scared, right? So now every once in awhile, usually while we're riding somewhere...I'm driving, they're in the backseat...one of them will say "Nana, tell us what you're gonna do to us if we 're bad!"
There's a number of variations, most of them dealing with being eaten. One of their favorites is: "If y'all do that ONE MORE TIME I'm going to get out a great big pot and fill it with water. Then I'm gonna put both of y'all in there and build a huge fire underneath it. Pretty soon the water will start to boil and when that happens y'all will start cooking. After awhile you'll get really really tender and when that happens I'll take you out of the pot and feed you to SOPHIE!!!" And they squeal and shreik and cackle and say "Tell me another story, nana!"
"Well, if you keep being bad I'm going to get a long metal skewer and stick you on it with some potatoes and onions and bell peppers. And then you know how we roast marshmallows on a campfire? Well that's what I'm gonna do to y'all, roast you until you're all crispy on the outside but soft and mushy on the inside and then I'm going to GOBBLE YOU DOWN!!!!" (Howl, yell, whoop.)
Last night driving back from a visit with my mother it was pouring down rain. They were making an awful lot of racket in the backseat and driving me slap crazy so I told them if they didn't quieten down I was going to stop the car and put them out on the highway in the rain and they could find their own way home, if they could. "No, I changed my mind, I won't stop the car, I'll just slow down and chuck y'all out the windows instead." "NOOOOOO, no nana! I'll be good! EEEEE!!! TELL ME *ANOTHER* STORY!!!"
They love it.
So I get them to their parents' house and there's some neighbors over there visiting. The kids go running in and and the neighbors pull them down on the sofa and ask "So what have y'all been doing?"
And so the girls tell them how I was going to throw them out of the car and leave them stranded in the rain on the side of the highway, and how I was going to boil them in a big pot and then feed them to my dog...who actually is right there looking at them and licking her lips - which I thought was a really cute touch. And the neighbors don't even think it's funny! Seriously, they're looking at me like I'm insane and dangerous. Their eyes were really big and shocked-looking and they kept glancing at my daughter who just shook her head back and forth and said "She does that all the time."
Humorless people suck.
-frolix