“Grandma, I don’t want to see George again. He is always pinching my cheeks and makes them hurt, “I said over-dramatically.

Don’t worry, honey. He is a nice old man,” said Grandma smiling. We were at my grandma’s restaurant in Dove Creek. George was this old man who always came in for coffee, always sat at the same table, and had the same blank stare everyday. My grandma always said, “Kids and elderly people are like a match in heaven.” But man was she wrong because I didn’t like that old man at all.

At my grandma’s restaurant The Blue Mountain Café I would always go up to greet the customers, hand them their menus, take their orders, and write down what I thought they would say. But George just couldn’t get enough of me. My grandma would make me go up to his table everyday just because they were old friends in high school. George would talk to himself and just stare out into open space, talking about something exploding and how scary it was. I always thought he was one of strangest people I could ever meet, but today I have figured out that he was just a tiny notch on a very big scale of weirdness. The next day, I came straight into the backroom of the restaurant with my mom and my brother. My grandma walked right in, took my arm and pushed me out of the room toward George’s table. I would resist constantly but she would always win the fight saying “I don’t get what all the fuss is about. He is a nice man. Just let him pinch your cheeks and don’t whine about it.” I could never say no to my grandma.

After she walked me to his table, I hesitantly handed him the menu, and hurriedly tried to walk away from that table but my grandma grabbed a hold of my arm. That’s when I started sputtering random words about how I didn’t want to go back over there but I came up blank after my grandma gave me this cold and icy stare that said “ Stay here and be nice”. Walking back to his table it seemed like a million miles and felt like everyone had gone quiet and had turned their attention to me. George reached out his hand and grabbed my arm pulling me towards him.

He reached for my cheeks and started pinching them, saying “You’re so cute, aren’t you?” After he had his little session of cheek-pinching, he started talking in his baby voice asking me, “What are you named after, the Sierra Mountains, Sierra Mist, What?” I answered these questions for what seemed like a million times a day and he was just plain annoying.

Sometime later over the next couple of days I had had enough of many rounds of cheek pinching. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing George again.

We walked slowly to his table and for what seemed like hours, the cold tile floor on my bare feet tickled. Everything was quiet, the only thing you could hear was heels on the bottom of my grandma’s shoes click and clacking over the smooth surface of the floor. My heart was racing at a million miles per second, I could see George smiling that innocent smile but we knew he wasn’t. We reached the table. I could already see the creases of his fingers reaching toward my face. When I reached out with both of my hands you could tell he was a sucker for my puppy dog eyes and he lifted me onto his lap. His other hand was coming closer and closer like moms who try to feed you by making air plane noises. I reached out with both hands and guided his hand to my mouth. Sticking it into my mouth I bit down hard. The wrinkles of his skin I could taste, the smell like that of a nursing home and prunes. I finally couldn’t stand it anymore letting go of my prey I could see the indentions of my teeth marks. All I remember after that was my grandma’s eyes getting as wide and round as saucer plates. She apologized to George frantically while I hopped down from my perch and walked away with a small smug smile on my face. “Ha,” I shrieked excitedly in my head. I got him back.” In the background George laughed a great jovial laugh, kind of like Santa Claus but way scarier.

Thinking back I now know my actions weren’t the best at that exact time, but I felt as thought I got my point across. Even though George was an elderly man and I could have hurt him and he was just trying to be nice, I shouldn’t have bitten him. I felt bad afterwards and now I know that I shouldn’t have let my temper get out of control and just let him get over his cheek pinching faze. Even though I pinch my brother’s cheeks and call him “baby cakes” you shouldn’t go up to younger kids and just randomly pinch their cheeks. To this day I have seen George several times since the incident and he still thinks that it was funny.