Whipped Cream

ELIZABETH P. GLIXMAN

Grandma Violet Verstein vas a vindow viper. She vashed vindows vith vipped cream. "Nothing better than vipped cream to make those vindows sparkle clear so you can see vhat's going on on the other side."

She vas 200 pounds of Slav vashing vindows on the 81st floor of So Vhat's Your Name And Is Your Son A Doctor Skyscraper in Vichita, Kansas. Employers loved her. They knew her veight would anchor the scaffold. No vorker's comp case here.

Her husband, may he rest in peace, fell vhile vashing vindows in Verona, Italy, at the Best Vindow Viper In The Vorld Competition. He fell off a ladder vhile vashing a stained glass vindow of a sheep made in the High Renaissance. He vas vashing the animal's glass eyeball.

There vas not much else to tell about Grandma Violet, except that she vas the best vindow viper on both sides of the Mississippi. She vashed vindows for 25 years in snow, sleet and pain to put smelly cheese-potato blintzes and who-could-eat-that borscht on the family's dinner table. She vashed those dirty vindows until her final moment.

"Voops," she said as she fell from the 60th floor, vhere she vas looking into a gynocologist's examining room. "My god, the voman in that office is doing vhat with a vhat?"

(The quote vas attributed to a pair of unmarried pigeons who saw the whole incident. They did not vant to be identified; cohabitation between the unmarried is a crime in Kansas.)

Grandma Violet's love of vipped cream will never die. Ve buried Grandma Violet vith droplets of droopy vipped cream on her coffin, and placed cherries on her grave. Each year on the anniversary of her passing, I remember her by vashing all the vindows in my house vith Violet's Vipped Creme De Menthe Window Cleaner. Her patented formula, found in better hardware stores across the country, comes in many other flavors, including Vipped Vanilla, Vatch Your Step Voops Lemon, and Vay To Go Violet Chicken Fudge.

HOME