Grandma and I decided to be proactive and went to pick up Valerie's laundry for my mother to do. I had convinced my grandmother, after a prolonged discussion, that it would be better to tell my mother the truth. As I reminded her, my mother often found out anyway, and she would be curious as to why my grandmother had spent the night with Ranger and me. Grandma had argued just as hard to tell my mother that aliens had abducted her and were just now returning her to Earth. I asked her how we would explain Ranger's call to tell my mother that she was staying with us overnight, and Grandma said that we could tell my mother that an alien had called her, not Ranger, and the alien just sounded a lot like him. I don't know how, but I finally convinced her that the alien-explanation wouldn't be a good explanation for us to use.

So my grandmother was a little grumpy when we drove up to my mother's house. I handed her a laundry basket filled with Edmund's clothes, and I stacked two laundry hampers on top of each other and carried them into the house. My mother had taken my grandmother's place at the door and had seen us coming, and she opened the door helpfully for us and followed us into the kitchen. We put the laundry baskets on the floor and Grandma immediately started sorting out the clothes for washing. I think she was trying to get a head start on providing my mother's form of Valium.

My mother looked at her, and then looked at me. "So where were you last night that you couldn't bring your grandmother home?" She poured the three of us a coffee and got out a Entemann's coffee cake. There was already a piece cut out of it, and I rather thought that, when my mother heard what had gone on, that I wouldn't see a piece of cake again for a few weeks. I sliced a piece each for my mother and Grandma before taking a large slice for myself. I figured that, if I was to be cut off cake for a while, I would have to make my last piece memorable.

I looked at my grandmother as I took a bite of the cake.

"It was the funniest thing", said Grandma. "I went shoe shopping with Steph, and aliens came down and abducted me. I barely got out of there alive."

I shoved in another mouthful.

My mother turned squinty eyes on my grandmother, and my grandmother looked back at her innocently, and I decided that I now understood where I got my ability to lie from. It was a skill I had developed over the years and used often. However, there were a few people that I really didn't like lying to, and my mother and Ranger topped the list. So when my mother turned her squinty eyes on me, I shrugged and shoved in the rest of the cake. "It wasn't aliens", I said. My grandmother glared at me. I turned to her. "I told you that Mom was too smart to believe that it was aliens."

"I would have believed it", said my grandmother.

"I know, but Mom needs to know the truth."

"Fine!" said my grandmother. She busied herself by sorting out the rest of the laundry.

"Steph?" said my mother.

"Grandma and Lula and I went to Mooner's to look at his newest shipment of shoes. Ranger drove us, and he waited outside for us to be finished. He bought us each a pair of shoes as well. While we were there, Mooner was smoking a little weed and the smoke from the joints was thick in the house. I went with Lula to search through the boxes for shoes and, when I realized that Grandma wasn't behind me, I went back to find her. She was smoking a joint."

"My mother was high?"

"Yes", I said. "We were all a little high, with the exception of Ranger, just because of the secondhand smoke. But while I recovered quickly when I was out in fresh air again, Grandma took a little longer to recover. Ranger took us back to his apartment and Grandma slept from about five yesterday afternoon until six this morning. She has since had a big breakfast and, to all intents and purposes, appears to have fully recovered. I also slept from about five-thirty to about five-thirty this morning. We have both had showers to try to get rid of the smell of the smoke, and Grandma is wearing some of my clothes so that you don't have to deal with the smell either."

My mother stared at me. "I think I preferred the alien explanation", she said. My grandmother threw me a look of triumph. "But I'm glad that I know the truth. I knew the explanation would be a doozy since you brought me laundry to do. You only bring me laundry when something is wrong."

I smiled. My mother knew me well.

I looked at the cake longingly and wondered if the explanation had gone well enough to give me another piece of cake, and my mother saw me looking at the cake box. "Oh, no, you don't", she said. "I may not be angry at you, but that doesn't mean that you're getting another piece of cake. You aren't out of the doghouse completely."

"It wasn't really my fault", I said.

"I know", said my mother as she sighed. "I know how hard it is to corral Grandma. I've had years of trying to clean up her messes. This is a fairly typical thing for your grandmother to do. I don't blame you. I'm not happy with you, but I don't blame you."

I smiled. It had turned out better than I had predicted. I might not get another piece of cake, but it didn't look like I'd be cut off cake completely for a while.

My grandmother turned to me. "You promised to help me with my resume", she said.

"I did. What do you have so far?"

My grandmother brightened and ran upstairs for her laptop. She came down a few minutes later. She opened up the document that she was working on and turned it towards me. "See?" she said. "The book said to put in a career objective. So I put in the objective that I'd like to earn some money before I die so that I can afford one of the nice caskets at Stiva's Funeral Home. I would hate to die and have to be put in one of the cheap boxes. I want lots of white satin and padding. I'd like to know that my bones were resting on something comfortable."

My mom made a choking sound and looked longingly towards the cabinet with the whiskey.

"You'll be dead", I said. "You'll never know."

"Yes, but I want to die knowing that I would be put in the best. I figure that I didn't have white satin at my wedding, so I want white satin at my funeral."

"Didn't you dress in white at your wedding?"

"No. I got married during a love-in. It was a blast, but I didn't wear a traditional wedding dress. I wore a yellow peasant blouse and an orange skirt, and I had flowers in my hair rather than a veil. It wasn't until your mother was three and your uncle was one that we found out that our marriage wasn't legal. When we found that out, we went down to City Hall and had a civil ceremony. I didn't see what the point was, but your grandfather was an old fuddy-duddy, and he wanted the piece of paper. I was always surprised that he had been at a love-in in the first place, but a friend of his dragged him to it."

"Hadn't you known Grandpa for a while before you got married?"

"No", said Grandma. "We had just met. It was love at first sight and, although the shine didn't last much longer than the love-in, we still had a good life. He went to work and brought home a good paycheck. He tried hard to be a good husband and, although we were completely opposites in personality, I appreciated his steadiness and he put up with my free spirit. We had some beauty arguments in our time, but I always knew that he would stand by me. He was a good man."

"He was always good to me", I said, "although he didn't understand me very well. He always seemed to like Valerie better."

"No, he didn't like Val better", said my grandmother. "He just understood her better. You are like me, whereas Val is like her grandfather. He thought the sun rose and set on both of you though, and there was little that he wouldn't have done for you." She paused. "So don't you like my career objective?"

"I don't think that it is a good career objective for someone to say that they are saving money to pay for their funeral. The potential employer might think that you'll be dying soon, and might not hire you because of that."

"But I will be dying soon."

"You have a good few years left in you yet, Grandma", I said.

"Maybe a few years", said Grandma. "Whether they are good or not is a better question." She paused, and just as I decided that I should say something to that, my grandmother said, "I don't have any work history, so I put down a series of skills that I had instead."

I looked down at her resume. "I don't think you should say that lying and manipulating make you a good people manager."

"But they do. Do you think I should say that I am creatively massaging the truth?"

"I don't know. I don't think that any potential employer would want to hear that their potential employee was adept at lying."

Grandma gave a nod. "I can see that."

"I think you might want to refrain from saying that you are able to drive. You no longer have a driver's license and you shouldn't encourage an employer by telling him or her that you can drive."

"Do you think that is really important? After all, I could renew my driver's license."

"Grandma, you lost your license when you were caught going sixty in a twenty zone. At the time, you said that you weren't able to see the speed signs because they were so blurry."

"Well, I had to say something. The police officers were getting a little annoyed with me for driving so fast, and they didn't believe me when I told them that I was driving so fast because aliens were after me."

"Telling them that you couldn't see properly probably wasn't your best move."

"Maybe not, but I still know how to drive. I could do it if I had to."

"Grandma, your car was dented and crumpled by the time you got rid of it. It made my cars look good."

"I may have had a little bad luck when I was driving. It wasn't my fault that people would put their trees and houses and things in my way."

"I know, but it makes sense for you to leave it off your resume, as you don't want to give the false impression that you have a valid driver's license." I looked down at her resume a little longer. "You might not want to say that you creatively acquired shopping items."

"Why not? I thought that was a good sentence."

"It makes it sound like you were stealing things."

"And at times…" Grandma looked at my mother glaring at her. "I'll change it", she said hurriedly.

"Perhaps it would be better for you to tailor your resume to the job that you are applying for. So, for instance, if you were applying for a job at the funeral home, you might talk about your good listening skills and your peaceful nature." My mother snorted.

"What should I say to apply as a 'ho?" asked Grandma.

My mother gave in to the call of the whiskey bottle.