On Tour...

Day 335

This morning I visited my grandmother. She has been losing it more and more over the years and we've all gotten used to telling her that her parents are dead. Today, I nearly lost it over the irony of when she looked at her walker and declared, "There is a screw missing!"

There is something about the county seat town and my father. Whenever we approach the city limits he declares that I am a "fucking idiot." When I bring it up later that he called me a fucking idiot he tells me that he only called me a fucking idiot because I was being a fucking idiot. Anyway today was spent with my father in the county seat. I love the sound of that, "county seat" tee hee hee. Shit, I am a fucking idiot. Anyway, so our first stop was a German restaurant. After my father ate "German Potato Salad" and sauerkraut and we got a mile down the road his comment was, "That place was full of a buncha drunks."

My father and I then wound up at the county museum. The most exciting part of the museum was that my father was in a wheelchair. Due to his MS he usually gets around with a walker but today his legs were quite horrid so I threw him in the community-use wheelchair to go through the museum. Here are some highlights:

I wheeled him directly into the men's room under his direction of, "Put me right in front of the piss bucket!"

When one of the wheels was sticking on a foot pedal my dad went on a loud, curse-filled rant in the quiet museum.

I would nearly crash his feet into stuff and get a small thrill just thinking about the ruckus that would ensue if he knocked over an ancient loom.

I rolled him into a position where his wheelchair was facing a buggy and took pictures as though they were playing chicken.

When we first went to the elevator we found it filled up with a wheel barrow and a walk behind mower. We squeezed in but when we reached the 2nd floor we found ourselves facing a dilemma--the door opened on the other side and we couldn't squeeze past the equipment. I wheeled the giant wheel barrow out of the elevator and then got my dad out. The door shut and I decided that we would leave the wheel barrow on the second floor to give the groundskeeper a little excitement in his day.

Tonight my mother and I sat outside and watched lightning from a passing thunderstorm and for the 20th or so time in my life she commented about how her and her dad used to sit out and watch the thunderstorms. I pretended (like the last 19 times) that this was the first time she was telling me this story. After she was finished she added, "When I am dead and gone tell that story." I will. But, I wonder if my children will take over the pretending it was the first time I droned on about my mother and her father and the storms. I imagine they will whine to me about having to hear it again and then I will realize that I failed at raising respectful children. Damnit.

Tip of the Day: Let your family push you around a little and then remind them of it later usually it won't be fodder for blackmail but it will at least make them laugh.

-Canadian Castaway