Sometimes, my dad is awesome.
I was making cheesecake for Thanksgiving and asked him whether he wanted to lick the bowl.
Dad: No, I don’t…[he sticks his pinky in the bowl and licks it tentatively.] Mmm, this is good. Give me a spoon.
So I let my dad slurp clean the remains of a bowl of cheesecake batter all by himself. Either I’m a very good daughter or a very, very bad one.
Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good night.
Facebook says I should reconnect with Devon Jones. I think Facebook has gone too far in poking its Mafia Wars-lovin’ face into my personal life. You don’t know me, FB! You don’t know anything about my relationship! Devon is sitting 4 feet away, sending email in his pajamas.
God, Facebook is a pushy wench.
In other news, we continue the never-ending battle against bodily fluids. Yesterday, Devon cleaned up more cat pee out of his chair and off of the floor, and I cleaned up a puddle in the bathroom. During the night, I mopped up two separate puddles outside the bathroom. This morning, Sahrah vomited another cat (probably the same cat the Fatass fired out of her ample bottom).
In Fitz’s defense, her pee pad really is disgusting and needs to be changed. I wouldn’t step on that, either.
Me: I’m going to spank you.
Devon: Why?
Me: You’re such a dude. We have an empty laundry basket in the closet and an empty laundry bag 3 feet away from it. Where are all your dirty clothes? On the floor between them.
Devon: Well, I got the right room.
Me: That’s like me shitting in the shower and saying it’s OK because I got the right room.
Devon: Who shits in the shower? Your metaphor is weird.
Me: It’s a simile.
Devon: You’re right. But a metaphor is like a simile.
Taking care of a man with dementia is like herding ants. Just when you think you have them all under the glass, two or three or 10 escape and run for the grass.
My routine with dad is predictable in its insanity: Tonight, he asks what day it is. I tell him it’s Friday. He tells me I need to pay the bills. I tell him they’re already paid. He asks me to move back home, since he doesn’t intend to date girls anymore. I tell him thank you, but I can’t. He asks me what day it is. I tell him it’s Friday. He asks me what day tomorrow is. I tell him tomorrow is Saturday. He organizes his medication, because he can do it all by himself, he tells me, and I adjust where necessary. He asks me what day it is. I tell him it’s Friday. He goes through his well-worn wallet, making sure he has enough money. He tells me I need to pay the bills. I tell him they’re already paid. He shows me his driver’s license, his American Express card, his photos, the scrap of paper on which I helped him spell ten through ninety when I was in the fourth grade so he could write out his checks properly. He still got ninety wrong. Dad has never been a scholar. He asks me what day it is. I tell him it’s Friday. I finally throw away the stack of mail he’s been obsessing over for an hour, because I don’t want to hear about it anymore, even though I know he’ll just obsess about something else. He goes through his wallet to make sure he has enough money. He asks me what day it is. I tell him it’s Friday.
He’s following the script in his head.
Trying to keep all the ants under the glass has been challenging, and a task ultimately doomed to failure. I miss mom for lots of reasons, partly because I wish she were here to do this.
I suck at this. Sorry, Dad.
Like I needed to give Devon another reason to kill me.
I was updating my medical insurance info, and I got to the part about “insurance beneficiary.” My company offers 1x base salary in life insurance at no charge to employees. Let’s just say that, should I accidentally shoot myself three times in the back of the head, Devon stands to make enough money to…throw a slammin’ pizza party. Maybe.
In other news, my future killer did me a huge favor by driving my dad’s car, which we animated temporarily by putting in a new battery, back to Queens. It can die a horrible death there for all I care. Good riddance.
Since my dad is never going to drive again as long as we can keep car and keys from meeting, I decided to try and sell the thing. Lo and behold, it is actually a piece of shit. It is 16-years-old, so that shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it was fine last year, and I was led to believe that it was in pretty good shape.
Since my friend is not going to buy this piece of shit after all, we decided to bring it back to Dad’s and let it rot in the driveway, since one of Dad’s meltdown triggers is this car. Unfortunately, the car decided to make its last stand next to a curb in Jersey.
It is dead. Not mostly dead, but completely and utterly dead, dead, dead.
I was going to have it junked, but now dad is melting down daily because the car isn’t there. So I’m going to have to pay several hundred dollars to have a dead car towed back to Queens so my dad can see it from the window and calm his shit down.
This is what I get for taking initiative. Initiative: bad.
When my responsibility to my dad is over, I am going to crawl into a hole with a stack of books and some yarn and crochet hooks and never come out, because I never want to be responsible for another person’s well being ever again.
Listen, Facebook, I don’t care what my mother told you to do before she died: I don’t need to hear your shit about my biological clock. I’m not even trying to have a baby, so I don’t need “fertility coaching.” I call my birth-control pills “baby bombs” for a reason.
Besides, the phrase “fertility coaching” is just bizarre. Like I really need some strange dude standing next to me while I’m having sex, telling me I’m doin’ it wrong.
My sister and I took Dad to the urologist today for a blood test to see how well his cancer meds are working, and I discovered the rich fantasy life my Dad has. He told his doctor all about the parties with girls, and how he drinks beer all day when he’s not eating cake.
The dude does eat a ton of cake, but I’m pretty sure the rest was bullshit.
Dad may need to get shots that will chemically castrate him. Our conversation, for your entertainment:
Dad: Am I getting a flu shot?
Me: No, Dad, a shot in the balls.
Dad: What?
Me: Oh, come on, it’s been ages since anyone’s touched your balls.
Yeah, I went there.
I was really stoked about the 48 roles of toilet paper in my closet that I bought off of Amazon. Their Subscribe and Save system lets me have ridiculous amounts of toilet paper delivered to my apartment every six months, no shipping costs. I even used a gift certificate, so I spent $17 on 48 rolls of toilet paper.
When I was a kid, I used to fantasize about becoming an astronaut, but this was way cooler than the promise of space flight.
Until Devon seriously harshed on my wow. Seems it wasn’t enough to get the 2-ply: He forgot to mention that he wanted quilted toilet paper, because he’s a sensitive asshole, too. So our conversation went something like this:
Devon: Next time, can you get the quilted kind? It’s way cooler than this lame-ass excuse for toilet paper you painstakingly researched and blew a gift certificate on.
Me: But it’s recyclable. It’s good for the environment.
Devon: I want the cushy kind or I will make heads roll.
Me: Think of your children! And your children’s children!
Devon: Cushy! Cushy!
Me: Why do you hate children?
OK, so maybe that’s an exaggeration. But he does want the quilted stuff, so now I have 48 rolls of toilet paper only I can use. Maybe I’ll TP a neighbor’s house this Halloween.
Having my dad sleep over our apartment is a weird experience — partly because we don’t have a bed set up for him yet, so I end up sleeping with dad and Devon takes the couch.
Dad wakes up, like, every hour on the hour to take a leak. Seriously. His bladder must be the size of a shot glass. I’m so happy I declined the prostate option at conception.
Every hour or so, Dad ambles out of bed and looks for the bathroom, because he forgets where it is every. single. time. The bathroom is 3 feet from the bed. He would see it if he simply turned around. I try to tell him where it is, but he can’t hear me, because his hearing aids are in the change bowl in the living room, so it ends with me gesturing wildly and screaming, “IT’S OVER THERE! THE BATHROOM’S OVER THERE!”
In the semi-darkness, I might as well be a giant mute octopus.
My main concern is that Dad will pee the bed, which is not outside the realm of possibility. That’s why I sleep on Devon’s side and Dad sleeps on my side.
The things I do for love.
