The grandson, temporary resident here

Grandson Arick is twenty-one years old. He was sharing digs with another young bachelor for several months, until he returned home unexpectedly one night and found his girl friend in his roommate's arms. He would have stuck it out there anyhow... after all, living expenses are high, and at least they were splitting rent and utilities. But the ex-girl friend started stealing his stuff. I told him he could crash here until he got things together, if he'd chip in $25 a week toward the household expenses and not to expect me to cook for him in the evenings when Cliff's at work. I try to cook low-fat and healthy for Cliff and myself, and I didn't want to have to cook two separate meals all the time. He's welcome to buy any frozen stuff he wants and put it in the deep freeze. Or eat whatever he can scrounge out of the refrigerator and cupboards.

He does his own laundry (rather poorly, but that's not my problem) and he's very careful not to wake me if he comes in late.

He's of age, and I told him he doesn't have to tell me where he's going or when he'll be back.

It's working all right, so far. Some weekend nights he doesn't come home. This week, he didn't show up for two nights straight during the week. It seems he has a new love interest who was house-sitting in the city, and she was afraid to be alone there.

"That sounds convenient," I said.

"Oh, very convenient," he answered.

So I asked him, "Hey, are you moving out?"

"Not unless you're making me," he answered.

This current girl friend likes to cook for him; so he comes home from work, showers, and leaves; sometimes he comes back here to sleep, sometimes not. Hey, at this rate I'll keep his weekly room rent at $25. I had originally planned to double it the end of this month.

He does live on the edge... like the time he got his truck stuck, for instance. Or last Sunday, when he called to say he'd run out of gasoline less than a mile down the road. My husband deals with such incidents, and doesn't seem to mind. I'm learning not to think too much about it. If such antics don't bother Cliff, the guy who has to go help him, why should I care? There was one little thing that shook Cliff up a bit, but that turned out to be a false alarm.

So far, so good.