I still get angry at my paternal grandmother sometimes (contains excessive ranting / funny ratio)
and she's been dead for like, four years. It's not even like she was a concertedly bad person, she just did one really stupid and unfair thing once. Most of the family live in the Londonish area, or did at that time; we live in Scotland, so seeing the family was a long trip with lots of luggage.

So, at the end of one series of visits when I was about 14, we're packing up, shifting all the luggage out of Granny & Granddad's house, all goes fine, Granny can't help much cause she's already pretty fragile at this point but she's laid on tea and cake, they wave us goodbye, Granddad smiles, slips his three grandkids a tenner each and off we go.

By the time we've got back home, Granny has accused me, to my dad's sisters and thus to my dad, of casually physically assaulting her. Apparently I thought that while everyone was distracted lifting luggage, I could amuse myself by kicking her in the leg.
Weirdly enough I have no memory of this. But my aunt's seen the bruise, Granny is steadfast in her utterly fucking ridiculous claim, and my protests of 'why the hell would I do that?' only add to their airtight case. Why WOULD someone do that? I don't have a reason, so I must be a psychotic sicko, and that's exactly the sort of thing a psycho-sicko would do...fuck it, I gave up arguing and just accepted the judgement. To this day I still have to suppress the urge to punch people who want me to apologise for something I didn't do; my hatred of wrongful accusation was forged sharp and hard in the fires of that one imposed 'misdeed'.

I did apologise, of course. What else could I do?

I have no idea what actually went on. My most charitable interpretation was that maybe, just possibly, I'd been a bit careless with a heavy suitcase or something? Not great of me, but far short of viciously assaulting my bloody grandmother for kicks. Seeing as how she went absolutely batshit doolally towards the end, though, I think that she made the whole thing up and it was an early sign of her mind going. Daft bint.

On a brighter note, my mum's mum is still going strong, and some of the best memories I have are of playing at her house. And we're off to see the family again in a month at some massive company bash my uncle's holding. In that light, it's a real shame that the only really strong memory I have of my other granny is of an inexplicable slander that I'll never know the truth of because she was gone long before she was dead.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Fri 3 Jun 2011, 9:56, 1 reply)

Try not to take it personal...
You're probably right about the senile thing. People tend to get overly vicious just as they're teetering the brink of sanity.
My Uncle (who was very much on his way to batty) once did a shit on the carpet in the toilet and told everyone I did it.
Still, it's annoying.
(spidaminida, Sun 5 Jun 2011, 14:52, closed)