I stayed in the car while she snuck around back, and came back 190 minutes later carrying this big, bulky AC unit.
My grandma was an odd old bird. It was about two years ago that she passed, but not a day goes by that I don’t think about her. Grandma was gone for long periods of time, months on end or once gone for two full years. It turns out that time she was in the state prison doing some time she had owed them after escaping from a previous sentence. Grandma wasn’t a violent person, but she was a grifter and a woman who enjoyed living on the edge. I remember one day she was left in charge of me, I was about seven, and she took me along with her to steal an air conditioner. She said that a friend of her told her to borrow the air conditioner, something I didn’t believe even at the time. I stayed in the car while she snuck around back, and came back 190 minutes later carrying this big, bulky AC unit. Of course it wasn’t a central HVAC system, it was the type of lunchbox-shaped air conditioner that you bolt into your window frame. I guess those A/C bolts couldn’t match up to grandma’s crowbar, because she tossed it into the back and drove away cackling. While we were out we didn’t get ice cream or go to the arcade or talk very much, we just stole the air conditioner and went back home. I will admit that once she got that A/C unit hooked up and turned on, she relaxed and became a lot more of a fun grandma, if only for the day.