The Grandpapa Voice

So I know you, Internet.

You see some crazy heavily armed nerd on the internet talking about his large group of like minded riffraff and you think "Oh, sure, he has some buddies in his D&D group that love talking about zombies and the guy thinks he's some kind of high level Post Apocalypse aristocrat. How is he even going to control all these panicking fucks when the shit goes down?" (Internally, we almost never say SHTF-we say "When the shit goes down" as in the Cypress Hill song.)

Well I have probably given you nothing but reason to doubt my credentials, but fuck you anyway, Internet. I got the motherfuckin' Grandpapa voice.

My grandfather was well known as a word class bellower and snarler, a man who believed in that quaint concept called "The Fear of God." It was bad enough that I have had Tios beg a bail bondsman not to let them out so they could face a nice, quiet judge rather than The Old Man. Once, when we were gaming in the dining room and making too much noise, Grandpapa snuck up behind me in the DM's chair and for a few moments I could not figure out why everyone's eyes were the size of dinner plates and no one else was talking. The man could instill fear in someone with one sharp whistle. If you ever want to get a shudder out of Jared, ask him how fast he peeled out when Grandpapa was coming out to get him unstuck from the culvert at the end of our driveway; it came loose just as the old man came out and Jared's tires smoked all the way to the stop sign at the highway.

What does this have to do with me?

So lately, as Gracie gets over her tewwible twos and thwees in fits and spurts, I've started to discover The Grandpapa Voice inside myself. Mostly it's "GRACIE GOD DAMNIT GET THE FORK OUT OF THE LIGHT SOCKET" or "GRACIE PUT THAT DOWN BEFORE I BURN YOU WITH THIS CIGARETTE" etc etc etc. I'm a quiet guy. I don't like to raise my voice. But when I do have to yell at her, man, it is motherfuckin' Grandpapa the second. It is bad enough that my friends who grew up with him all look up for a moment with that deer in the headlights look. Hell, its bad enough that my own echo in the hallway sometimes freaks me out, and I always know it's coming.

I am the living reincarnation of that crotchety old bastard, and when the time comes to seize control of the group, like when the dead are rising or the Chicoms are dropping paratroopers downtown on 3rd & Rogers or, god help me, if the Heffalumps and Woozles are fighting it out in the streets, I am gonna bust out that voice at full volume and watch my homies jump. My homies will jump, my aunts and uncles will jump, my mom and cousins will jump-I'll go from "stoner with delusions of grandeur" to "stoner with a small army" in one bellow.

You better mother fuckin' believe it.