Entertaining Grandkids

 

“Hey, I got a good ideer! Instead of going to Sunday school, let’s sneak behind the church and smoke cigarettes.”

Eventually, grandparents come to understand that entertaining the grandkids isn’t optional - it’s mandatory. Somewhere between their first juice box and their first chicken finger, you either become interesting… or you become invisible.

That’s why I invented Nipper.

Nipper is a character birthed from my fertile imagination - an irritating hand puppet without a puppet. No felt. No googly eyes. Just my hand moving in sync with a raspy, overconfident voice. 

He spews aggravating, arrogant commentary and consistently makes terrible decisions. Looking back, he was undoubtedly influenced by those old skits I saw on The Soupy Sales Show.

I come by this honestly. My father, with all his flaws, had an incredible imagination. As a teenager, he’d call me to his bed almost every night and spin improvised, hilarious, R-rated stories about the Red Roach and the Purple Chicken, characters he created on the spot. Years later, my family still talks about them.

My first granddaughter, Rilynne, met Nipper around the age of three. Nipper intentionally mispronounced her name “Rollanne” - and it aggravated her immediately. Success.

Rilynne doesn’t usually laugh at Nipper. She mostly plays along, tolerating his nonsense like a seasoned straight man in a comedy duo. She’ll correct him. Roll her eyes. Inform him he’s wrong. The one notable exception was the day Nipper decided to show off his dance moves. For reasons I still don’t understand, he broke into what can only be described as a cross between a malfunctioning robot and a man being attacked by bees. Somehow that impressed her.

Soon his escapades escalated. I gave him a last name, Niptavious, and a firm-handed mother who speaks with a British accent. (It’s an accent I can do reasonably well, which is probably the only reason she’s British.) She rules with an iron fist and zero patience for nonsense.

I even invented a vocabulary for the Nipper universe. He had his own swear words.  Saying  “crumbum” and “hinky-dink” were enough to summon his mother from the next room. “Bubblygruber!” and “Holy Mamba Palamba!” could shut the whole house down.

In time, I started making videos of him. When he had to ease up on junk food, I filmed Nipper dramatically throwing brussel sprouts on the floor.  When Rilynne made all A’s, I filmed Nipper carefully changing his report card from straight F’s into A’s, explaining that “now I have Straight A’s too.” He’s also run away from home, only to start crying because he missed his Mommy. However, he did not miss her when she washed his mouth out with soap for saying Nipper swear words. He’s had the Niprona virus, and even stolen pizza from me. 

Nipper consistently gets his facts wrong. When I sent Rilynne a video from the Grand Canyon, Nipper pointed to a distant peak and announced it was where Moses received the 12 Commandments. Another ridge, he claimed, was where the dragon lived in Lord of the Rings. He also informed her that at the deepest point of the canyon, Granddaddy had peed off the side and park rangers were currently in pursuit.

Sadly for me, Rilynne has just about outgrown him. She’s older now, and   less impressed with a talking hand.  

But I have another granddaughter, six-year-old Addy, who loves to play along. She doesn’t just tolerate Nipper; she engages him. Challenges him.  Plays tricks on him. Encourages his bad ideas just enough to keep him talking, and then tattles on him. 

I’ve even given Nipper a girlfriend.  Her name is Myrtle and she speaks with a French accent.  They like to kiss, and Addy constantly tries to break them up. 

I suppose that’s the cycle of life.

One granddaughter grows up and steps away from the puppet. Another steps in and grabs his hand. Nipper lives to irritate another day. 

He’s proof that imagination didn’t skip a generation. It just waited.

And if someday Rilynne calls one of her own grandchildren to the edge of the bed and begins a ridiculous story about some thing that wants to sneak behind a church and smoke cigarettes…well, Nipper Niptavious will have done his job. And I will have done mine.