“You let him have a BB-gun?
He’s going to shoot his eye out!”
That I was gonna shoot myself
My Grandma didn’t have a doubt.

So I made a terrible face
Because of what she had to say.
“I guess you know when it freezes,
Your face is gonna stay that way.”

Now when I lie I check my nose
To quickly see how long it’s grown.
Whoever told my Grandma that
I think had better check their own.

She said that I would get some warts
From playing with a dried up toad.
I showed her that the toad was dead,
I found him flattened in the road.

So then she made me go and wash
And then she said she had some fears.
Unless she helped me scrub them out,
I’d grow turnips in my ears.

I told her while she scrubbed my ears
That I had plans to pay her back.
Next time I play on our sidewalk,
I told her I’ll step on a crack!

The punch line of Things My Grandma Says probably went right over the head of most teenagers.

When I was a grade schooler living in Houston, where there were sidewalks, there was a little ditty that kids sang as they walked. “Step on a crack and break your grandmother’s back.” I don’t know where it came from. Parents might not remember it but grandparents will.

With that little history lesson, I hope the poem makes more sense. Country kids who have no sidewalks had their own ditties but that is another poem.