Test Drive

When I talked to mom she couldn’t remember where they’d been that morning, but my dad had gone out again and she didn’t know when he’d be back. (Mom’s memory is missing.)

So, I called later and talked to my dad. He said after they got home, he went out to the Hyundai dealer because they kept sending papers to him in the mail and he didn’t want them. While he was there, he looked at the new Sante Fe SUV (he has a 2005 Sante Fe). The salesman asked him if he’d like to test drive it. So off they went. And had a nice drive about 4:00 in the afternoon.

He returned to the dealership, then came on home and all was well.

“How much do they want for those?” I asked.

“We didn’t get to that,” he said. He used to love to take his latest car passion for a test drive. He’s test driven a lot of Toyotas.

“Do you have a Hyundai dealer out there?” he asked.

I said I was sure there is one not too far away, but I didn’t know where.

“Well, you outta treat yourself and go for a test drive.”

BBs

I called and my dad answered.

“What’cha doing?” I asked.

“I’m sitting at the table putting some BBs in a gun,” he said. “I wrapped a few presents and thought I’d do something different.” (It’s early December.)

“Oh, what do you need the gun for?” I inquired.

“Why? Are you going to tell me I shouldn’t?” he replied. Immediately defensive. Hmmm. That hasn’t happened in a while.

Me: “No I just wondered why you were doing it.” Better change the subject. “Did you decorate your tree?”

“No, haven’t decorated it yet. Are you going to get after me about that now?” he said.

Wow, that’s different.

“Let me talk to mom,” I said looking for a way out.

So then mom picked up and said his behavior is different today.

Furnace Filters and Ice Cubes

“Hey Daddy. What have you been doing today?”

“I just finished changing the furnace filters. It’s going to get cold and we need to turn on the heat. I replaced five filters,” he said.

Me: “Five filters? Why so many?” Their house is less than 3000 square feet.

“Well, there was the one on the furnace and one on each cold-air return.” I’m rolling my eyes.

“It was a hot job. I poured a glass of Coke. I put some ice cubes in it and drank it. Then I rinsed off the ice cubes and put them back in the freezer.”

Me: “Don’t save the ice cubes. They have germs on them. Just throw them in the drain. You have plenty of ice.”

Him: “I like to use the ice cubes again.”

Pea Soup

“I’ve been making some pea soup,” he said. 

He’s never cooked in his life. He rarely goes in the kitchen.

Me: “Why are you doing that?”

“Because the stuff you get in the store has too much salt in it.” 

He loves to buy Campbell soup when he goes shopping.

Me: “Oh. Well, how did it turn out?”

“Well, it’s been sitting here on the counter a couple of days. It has a film on top.”

Me: “Daddy, you need to pour that out. It should have been refrigerated. The film on top is bacteria or mold. Just throw it out.”

“I guess I’ll take it outside and pour it in the yard. It’ll stop up the drain if I pour it in the sink.”

Cluster

My friend texted me that my mom was locked out of the house. My friend said that my mom was at her mom’s house (which is across from my parents’ house). My friend lives two hours from her mom, and I live 1500 miles from both. Communications technology these days is awesome.

I knew mom had gone off to a church meeting that morning, so this scenario was plausible. I called to see if mom had gotten back in the house. When my dad answered the phone and said she was there, I knew all was better and moved on to another matter. I asked if mom had a doctor appointment for her bruised shoulder.

He said: “I called this morning. Absolutely a crime. A damn shame.”

“Where’s the appointment?” I asked.

“You know where McDonald’s is on highway so-and-so?”

Me: “What’s the doctor’s name?”

“If you’ll wait a minute!” Pause. “You turn next to the McDonald’s. It’s on the left.”

Pause. “I called this morning. And then some girl comes on the phone. Uh, what’s here name? I put it some place. Where is it?”

Is it an orthopedic doctor?

“Proctologist I think it is. I can’t read it. Where are my glasses? I’m going nuts around here!”

The Glass Castle

My sister is a flight attendant, and someone left a copy of the book The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls, on the airplane my sister was working on one day. She picked it, took it home, and read it. Then she gave me a copy for my birthday. When I called to thank her, she said, “I thought our family was weird, but this book beats it.”

If you haven’t read it, The Glass Castle, now a movie, is so interesting and well-written and easy to read and tells a remarkable, true story. The writer’s parents thought they were being good parents, but the children were left to fend for themselves in dangerous, filthy, poverty conditions.

The book was a touch-point for my sister and I to start talking about our family and some of the strange things our parents did. It opened a dialog where we remembered events and things my dad had done when we were growing up that we’d never discussed before. My sister married when she was 18, nine months after graduating from high school. She left home and we never talked about our dad’s odd behavior. She didn’t have to deal with it anymore on an ongoing basis.

She gave me The Glass Castle in 2006. Since then, she and I have had more phone calls than ever (we live in different states) —lots of comments about what went on at family get togethers. And now that my dad’s been in the hospital a few times, we text about that, and now the dementia diagnosis.

Phone, Neighbors, Soldering Iron

I called my parents on Friday afternoon at my usual time. The call went straight to voice mail: odd. I called again that evening and the same thing happened. So, I called my sister to see if she had talked to them that day. No. So, I called my parents’ neighbor and they volunteered to walk over and ring my parents’ doorbell and check on them. Such nice people.

About 15 minutes later, my dad called me from his cell phone. The neighbors had come to their door and told them I was trying to get them on the phone. My parents were in bed – at 8:30!

Their phone (landline) was not working. When they picked it up, they heard a buzzing sound. So, instead of going back to bed and dealing with it in the morning, my dad called the phone company. 

He called me about an hour later to tell me. He said, “I asked the man where he was. He said Texas. I don’t understand why they aren’t here in town!”

I said, “It’s Friday night, Daddy. The office is closed.”

Anyway, my dad put in a ticket and they said someone would be out to fix the phone Monday because apparently the problem was in the phone, not the line.

Sunday night my dad called me and I could tell from the caller ID on my cell phone that he was calling from his landline. “Hey,” I said. “Looks like you got your phone fixed.”

He said, “The problem was the battery charger in the wireless phone. I happened to hear it making a noise, so I looked at it and realized it was the problem. I had to take the battery pack out and solder some batteries together to get the right charge to replace what was in there. Your mother held the wires while I soldered them.”

I’m listening to this nonsense from 1500 miles away. We hung up and I texted my brother-in-law to let him know what happened. He said the battery packs are kind of expensive and my dad probably didn’t want to pay for one. He knew he could make one on his own, so he did.

I’m just glad no firetruck was needed.