Garage Sale Humor

No one goes to garage sales like my mother. She is the perfect little boy scout – always prepared. Always prepared for anything. She wears her comfy shoes and brings an extra pair in case of muddy yards. She brings her maps, snacks, money, even items to trade or barter with. She has detailed notes she makes from the ads in the newspapers. She has her sunblock, sunglasses, and umbrella. If she thinks it might be useful, she brings it. She loads up the car and off she goes. As well prepared as she thinks she is, one particular Saturday of garage saling left her scarred for life. She now adds one additional it to her endless supplies…To read more, please visit http://www.helium.com/items/946127-humor-garage-sales

Learn more about this author, Emma Riley Sutton 

Weird Pets

On the welcome mat I have placed outside my front door is written “Welcome to my zoo.” It was a gift from a friend who knows what is on the other side of that door. He teased my relentlessly about all the animals that live with me. He thinks I am crazy for having all of these animals. I know I am crazy for having all of these animals. What exactly lives on the other side of my front door? I’m not exactly sure of the number, but let’s take a quick inventory and see if I can figure it out…http://www.helium.com/items/1060775-weird-pets

Learn more about this author, Emma Riley Sutton. 

 

Service Animals Helping Those in Need

Service animals come in all shapes and sizes, species and breeds. Most commonly known as guide dogs for the visually impaired, that is only a small portion of service animals. There are many other jobs service animals can do for their human charges. Depending upon whether specialized training is needed or not, the duties service animals provide are quite varied…To read more, visit http://www.helium.com/items/1066292-service-animals-pets-that-help-people

Learn more about this author, Emma Riley Sutton.

 

Humor…even in Alzheimer’s Disease

My grandfather was always a funny man. He had been to compared to Will Rogers on more than one occasion. He had a quick, down-home wit that amused everyone. When we found out he had Alzheimer’s, we thought this side of him would be taken over by the disease. In some ways it was, but, we found a way to find humor in that awful disease. People who did not know him before he had Alzheimer’s sometimes thought we were mocking him. That was never the case! If he had been the pre-Alzheimer’s person he had been, he would have laughed as well. We had to keep that spirit alive…To read more, visit http://www.helium.com/items/953026-where-is-the-funny-side-of-sad-in-alzheimers

Learn more about this author, Emma Riley Sutton.

One such instance took place at a stop light. We were coming back from a doctor’s appointment. The car next to us was filled with, to put it delicately, non-Caucasians. Loud music throbbed from the car. My grandfather, normally not a racist or one to judge by another by their ethnic background, somehow remembered how to work the controls to roll down the window. Before we could roll the window up (he was still holding down the button and the other controls wouldn’t work) started shouting racial “put downs” at them. He then begin to wave his arm out the window.

The young men turned down the music. They now were able to hear everything my grandfather was shouting at them.

We were stuck. Cars in front and behind us, we couldn’t drive away. We tried to get him to be quiet, but it didn’t work. He continued his shouting.

“What the #&*@$ is wrong with you?” one of them shouted back, waving a clenched fist.

My grandfather continued to yell.

“What the ^*#@% is wrong with you?” the young man yelled again. “You got old timers or something?”

“Yeah, I do,” my grandfather shouted back. “And, you have young timers.”

The light changed and we got out of there as quickly as possible. Once we could no longer be seen by those young men, my mother and I burst into laughter. We still use the term “young timers” when we forget something we should know.

Another time took place in the doctor’s office in the mid 1990s. The geriatric specialist was grilling my grandfather, trying to see what he could and could not remember. We hated this part of the exam. It was almost like the doctor was trying to make him look and feel bad, even though that was not the case.

The doctor asked my grandfather who the president was. My grandfather would normally say Truman or Hoover. Today, however, he didn’t seem to be in the mood to answer. The doctor asked the question several times, to which my grandfather explained, each time, that it was a hard question and no one really knew the answer to it. I was just about to step in and ask the doctor to move on, but my grandfather answered him.

“I don’t rightly know,” he said thoughtfully. “Not many can really tell these days. If I had to make a guess, I would say Hillary.”

My mother, the doctor and I all laughed. “Did he get it right?” I asked the doctor.

“I’m not to sure about that one either,” the doctor said, shaking his head. “He’s right, not many can tell these days.”

We learned that taking my grandfather to an all-you-can-eat buffet was easier. He could actually see the food and pick what he wanted. Not that we went out to eat often, but we did occasionally. He loved to do something new and, honestly, sometimes we were just to exhausted to cook

On one such occasion, everything went well. There wasn’t any outburst, throwing food, or even spilled food. We were thankful and happy. When the meal ended, we went to pay up front at the cash register. It took both of us to get him in the car, so as I paid for the meal, my mother watched my grandfather. He looked at the pictures on the wall. He nodded at people as they came and went. I had just gotten the change back and turned around when I saw what he was about to do. I couldn’t do or say anything fast enough. He pulled the fire alarm! The noise scared him and, glory be, he ran outside. My mom and I in hot pursuit.

We still eat in that restaurant. We always smile when we see the little red box on the wall because it reminds us of that time he ate well, had a good time, and activated the fire alarm.

My mom and I, obviously, were my grandfather’s primary caregivers. We were his only caregivers for several years. At that time, he always knew me. Not my name, but he did remember the nickname he gave me – “Cissy.” He didn’t know my mom, though. This bothered her, but she tried not to let it show. One of the ways she dealt with her hurt was to over-eat.

One afternoon, she was cooking his lunch and I was playing a game that would have been dominoes during his pre-Alzheimer’s days. He was quite talkative that day. I was thrilled; he wasn’t talking much anymore.

“I sure do love it when come over,” he was told me. “You are so much nicer than that other one.”

I smiled and made my move. My mom could hear everything and I didn’t want her to be upset or think he didn’t like her.

My grandfather went on. “You know the one I’m talking about. The bossy one.”

“She just tries to help us out,” I explained.

“She needs to help out, all the way out the door. You know the one I’m talking about? She’s that fat one.”

I snickered. My grandfather might have had Alzheimer’s, but he knew she had put on more than a little weight.

My mom called me yesterday, years since that incident. She is starting a diet. “I hate to do it,” she explained. “I might not be the fat one anymore.”

We both laughed.

I got a phone call one evening from my mom. “You need to come home. Daddy doesn’t look right.”

I knew it had to be serious; a night out with friends was a rarity for me and my mom wouldn’t call unless it was important. I left my friend’s house, in the middle of the movie we had rented, and raced home.

I found my mother walking around my grandfather, sizing him up and down.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. He isn’t sick. He just doesn’t look right,” she explained, still looking closely at him.

We went through the check list together and out loud. Glasses, hair short and combed, dentures, t-shirt, one long-sleeved shirt (he tended to put on “all” of his clothes at once), clean face, clean hands, close shave (very important to him), one belt, one pair of pants (we discreetly checked), shoes match, socks match, watch, wedding ring. We went through the list twice. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Something wasn’t quite right, but we couldn’t figure it out.

My mom sat down on the couch and I plopped down on the floor. I mulled it over in my head. Whatever was wrong with him, it was something we should see. I felt awful. Something was wrong with his appearance and that would hurt his feelings if he knew. I had to figure it out. We sat there for over an hour, brainstorming the possibilities. Then I saw it…

He was wearing two pairs of glasses! My grandfather’s old glasses had smaller lenses and frames. They fit perfectly under his new ones. The frames were the same color so it was hard to see that there were two of them.

Well, that is what we told each other. Anyone else could have walked through the door and immediately seen what was wrong. We just missed it.

The other day my husband stopped me as I was walking out the door. “Do you always wear sunglasses on your face and on your head?”

I reached up and felt the glasses I had perched on top of my head. “Yes, I do. It is a family tradition.”

I laughed all the way to the car and most of the way to the store. Even though I wasn’t looking through two pairs of glasses, I was still wearing two pairs. I guess everyone is right when they say I am just like my grandfather.

I saved the best one for last…

I went to the grocery store. While I was gone, my mom’s little dog decides to give her a gift – a little brown field mouse he has killed. My mom is deathly afraid of mice, even dead ones. She calls my grandmother to bring my grandfather inside. They are living in the house we had built for them in the bag yard. She get a paper bag and asks my grandfather to “take care of the mouse.” Fear of mice is hereditary; she got it from her mom. He puts it in the bag for her. He and my grandmother go outside. My grandmother is partially blind, but she can see well enough to watch him walk to the curb and back. My mom has taken to her bed due to the mouse incident.

When I get back home, she tells me all about it. I laugh at the thought of my mom and a mouse. We don’t think anymore about it.

My dad comes home from work. He walks in holding a paper bag. “Is there any reason in particular there was a dead mouse in a paper bag in the mailbox?”

My grandmother, obviously, didn’t see my grandfather put the mouse in the mailbox.

The only way that could be any funnier is if it had been the mailman who had found the mouse. Then again, it might have caused the poor man to have a heart attack, given him nightmares, or made him “go postal” in a few years. Not that it matters. It was perfect the way it happened.

I have yet to ever check the mail that I don’t think of that. It is the same way with my mom. Not everyone can laugh so hard doing something as mundane as checking the mail. My mom and I can.

My grandfather has been gone for almost eight years now. He made his blessed trip to Heaven in 2000. I miss him more now than ever. Taking care of him the last seven years of his life was a wonderful thing for me. It gave me a chance to spend time with him and to, in my feeble and inadequate way, say thank you for all the things he had done for me. He gave me the great gift of laughter, before, during, and, now, after Alzheimer’s. I am so thankful for that.