Dinner With Grandma

My grandma is the only person I've ever seen eat a taco like a sandwich.


When I tell her that, she asks me, "What are you eating?"
(She can't see what I'm eating because she is blind.)
"A burrito."
"What's a burrito?"
(She doesn't know this because she's from Missouri circa 1910.)
"Everything that's in your taco rolled up in a tortilla."
"That's why I've never had one. I don't like those flour tortillas."

We are quiet a while. She and my grandpa used to come to this Taco Bell together a long time ago. They used to bring my brother and me here on get-out-of-the-kitchen nights. I loved the yellow paper my burritos came rolled in and the cheese shredded in super skinny slices. Grandma's vision has dimmed over the years. I am fully sighted. But we're both seeing the same history in our minds.

"I almost died laughing at Orin eating a tostado," she says.
"Why's that? How'd Grandpa eat his tostadas?"
"He had such a long nose." (And now she's laughing.) "Couldn't take a bite without getting it in it!"