Buttons are a bitch

 For three months...I have been fighting EVERYTHING. Nursing homes. My dad's unwillingness to eat. Opinions (Turns out, everyone has one...or two...or three...). Covid restrictions and protocols. My mom's dementia. Fate. Time. And...buttons. Buttons are KILLING me.

ATTENTION, would-be inventors:  Want to make millions? Design a universal television remote with only THREE buttons. Power switch. Channel up/down. Volume up/down. You are letting the duct-tape people OWN you, my friends. Walk through any nursing home or assisted living community and you will find hundreds of remotes strategically covered by duct-tape to reveal only THREE buttons. 

Buttons are kicking my ass. My mom's elusive memory enjoys playing games with me. I spent hours trying to teach her how to use speed dial as punching all the buttons to call my dad would often result in a fun chat with a remote village in Zambia. Speed dial. Two buttons. Count them. Two. But we couldn't master the skill. Until...

Imagine my delighted surprise when my mom's number flashed on my phone as I worked late on a Thursday evening. The delighted surprise quickly turned to shock as I found myself on the receiving end of my "mother's" rage. I have finally come to terms that, during these episodes, I am not actually dealing with my mother. As she spat swear words, accusations, and blame at me, I sank to the floor of my classroom and thought, Now you remember how to use speed dial? I glanced at the clock. "Mom," I interrupted, "Isn't Wheel of Fortune on?" Little did Pat Sajak and Vanna realize how much I had come to rely on them. "This %$^&*$-ing TV isn't any good," the demon possessing my mother informed me. I gently explained that I was going to hang up to rectify this matter and she not-so-gently offered her opinion about my plan. I hung up anyway and alerted her front desk who were well-versed in emergency remote control calls.

Buttons.

The TV even spiraled out of control during my stay with her. My sister-in-law has a doctorate in remote control comprehension but even she was powerless to help us. I swallowed my dignity and asked the staff to help us but they didn't have the remotest idea how to fix our problem. I sighed. It was either puppet shows or the Chrome Book. I am noticing, lately, that blessings turn up in the most unlikely of places. I plunked my mother in front of my miniature monitor and went to YouTube.  We enjoyed a few Wheel of Fortune segments as well as a few rounds of Family Feud. God bless Steve Harvey who can make my mother smile when I can't. Remembering my mother's fondness of music, I brought up Elsa belting out "Let It Go," a sentiment my mother immediately adopted. "Why is she screeching?" Mom frowned, squinting at my small screen. Okay. We watched Shirley Temple tap. Ginger Rogers waltz. And then...the epicenter...Elvis. My mother happily watched The King in his prime for over an hour.  It was pure bliss.

One of my mother's few remaining pleasures is drinking her tea. There is a soothing, elegant ritual involved in tea that us coffee drinkers will never comprehend. It is a dignified past-time. But now the buttons on the microwave baffle my poor mother. And my placing explanatory postie-notes on it infuriates her. She, understandably, hates being treated like a child. But I hate that my mom can't enjoy her tea. The war was on.

Buttons.

This battle, mothers versus daughters, has been fought since the inception of time...a time that is eternally blinking inaccurately; no doubt because of a recent power outage.  My own children, seeking to improve the lives of their parents ("improving"), decided to upgrade my own microwave, affectionally named "Old Sparky," this past Christmas. Brad and I were perplexed. We love our microwave. It has been with us, almost from the beginning. Sure, it occasionally puts on an impressive and somewhat alarming laser light show but that is part of its charm. When our cave-people ancestors ventured from their lairs for sustenance, wasn't there an element of danger to their quest? What is reward without a bit of risk?

Savannah and Sydney were quite displeased to discover their gift being used, in its original packaging, as a handy side table in my dining room when they arrived last week-end. "Christmas was almost three months ago," my disgruntled daughters announced, digging out the new microwave and callously re-packaging our tried-and-true kitchen companion. "It's so clean," I complained. "The time display is blinding," Brad observed, shielding his eyes. "Oh my goodness, does the interior light up?" I yelled, "Shadows shield the splatters!"

Ignoring our lack of gratitude, my daughters stepped back to survey this "improvement" to my kitchen while I stomped off muttering, "Those girls know how to push my..."

Buttons.

Psalm 91:1

My husband, the widely-renowned sage and philosophical genius, keeps gently telling me that, right now, we are choosing the very best of the bad options laid out in front of us. He's a big comfort, that one.

I am not blessed with Brad's capacity for deep thought and profound logic.  For good or bad, I look for God in EVERYTHING and search for signs (the more obscure, the better). Most of the time, shockingly, my interpretations tend to favor me getting my own way. I like to say that God protects fools and Amy Mosiman. My calorie count often takes a hit because I am certain that the Lord placed that sweet little snack-er-al in my path for a reason. But there are times when I absolutely know that God is with me.

I didn't sleep the night before we moved my mom out of her house. I paced the floor. Refused to take a pain reliever for my pounding headache as my self-inflicted mental flagellation for causing my mother distress. Cried. Searched, for the thousandth time, for another solution to this colossal mess we were in. As usual, I forgot to pray.

As I cut a deep trail across my mother's kitchen floor, I happened to glance out the window. Squinting, I was startled by the shadow that lay across her garage door. I hurried to put on my glasses to be sure. Yup. There, big as life, was the letter "V." I laughed, comforted for the moment. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...thou art with me." I forgot. But of course, God didn't.

My mom's name is Evangeline. Her friends call her "Vee."
 

PART VI: Whereupon Amy is summarily kicked out of an Assisted Living community by her mother and then immediately sneaks back in

My dad has been predicting his demise for, at the very least, the last fifteen years. These dark declarations can be ranked in the top five of his favorite hobbies which also include: reading instruction manuals, unnecessarily saving and categorizing every receipt known to man, complaining about his neighbors' offers to help with small yard chores, and getting on ladders every chance he can. 

So it was not surprising to me AT ALL when I was visiting him on Wednesday and arguing about how many bites of applesauce that he would be willing to eat, that he would interrupt our daily dietary debate with his latest prophesy. 

Dad had these conversations down to a science. I'm pretty sure he had the script meticulously written in one of his millions of little notebooks. I am imagining that it may have looked a little like this:

Step One:  Clear your throat (so as to indicate something of Great Importance is about to be stated).

Step Two:  Patiently explain to your loved one that they are NOT going to like what you're about to say but they are just going to have to deal with it. It is, after all, your life...I mean, death.

Step Three:  Announce your intentions, allowing for a dramatic pause for audience indignation and/or protest.

Step Four: Conduct a lengthy question and answer session.

"Amy Sue," he said, batting my hand away as I attempted to slip an unauthorized spoonful of applesauce into his mouth, "I have something to tell you."

He cleared his throat.

"You're not going to like it."

I settled back into my chair and glanced around for a program. The show was about to begin. I wondered if I had time to pop some popcorn.

"These past few months have been tough," said my dad, for once the master of understatement. I nodded. No argument from me. I had never witnessed someone in as such excruciating pain as my poor dad...one nightmarish evening found me on my knees shoveling ice chips in my dad's mouth and Lamaze breathing with him as his back seized up in regular contractions lasting anywhere between 45 seconds to two minutes in length with, if we were lucky, a couple minutes break in between. Brad Mosiman would hold my dad's shoulders to the bed as the rest of his body attempted to levitate away from the pain that was paralyzing him. But my dad had the pulse/ox device clipped to his finger and we'd learned that below 90 was bad. It was explained that, if Dad could control his breathing by pulling air in through his nose and blowing it out of his mouth, we could get that number to rise. And he did. Earl DeLong, "the human earthquake," breathed with me as we fought to control that number through his pain. My dad was tough.

"I think my body has had about all it can handle," he went on as I debated stuffing another spoonful of applesauce into his mouth. He delivered his dramatic pause like a seasoned veteran of the stage. I decided not to ruin his moment with a mouthful of pureed pectin. I glanced over to his cupboards to see if he had any orange Jell-O there. Bingo! I stood to rip off the lid.

"I am going to die on March 16th," he gently informed me. I sat down and he nodded at me sympathetically. It was a lot to take in. I offered him a soothing bite of orange gelatin. He swallowed, waiting for my reaction. "Well...ya better get cracking there, buddy," I told him as I slipped an ice chip between his lips. He raised his eyebrows at me questioningly. I leaned in to him and grinned. "Dad, TODAY is March 16th!" He laughed out loud.

My dad is going to be so pissed that he'd miscalculated by three days.

Go with God, Earl DeLong.

PART V: Whereupon Amy decides to leave her old life behind and move into an Assisted Living community (whether they want her to or not)

There is nothing funny about dementia. It is torturing my mother. She constantly feels frustrated and ashamed. Strategies that work one day have absolutely no effect the next and we refrain from looking upward in supplicative prayer for fear of glimpsing the razor sharp guillotine blade winking over our heads. But sometimes...if you don't laugh...you'll cry (and maybe never stop).

Living in close proximity with a loved one with memory issues is like solving a bunch of mysteries in an escape room (except you can never actually escape). 

A month or so ago, my mother had been given a black can that emitted a spray medicinal foam to rub on her legs to relieve evening cramping. Brad and I walked in one evening and, as my eyes inventoried the room, I spotted a familiar blue bottle of Mylanta on her table. Fearful, I asked lightly if she had had a stomach-ache recently. "What's with the Mylanta, Mom?" I inquired, holding up the bottle for her to see. "It's for my leg," she informed me. I turned from her to face my husband, wide-eyed. This was a critical moment for me...this marks the exact moment that I realized that my mother could not go it alone. Rarely do I correct my mother...instead riding the lazy river along its course...but this particular journey was headed straight for Class Five rapids and a raging waterfall. I read the label description to her and, embarrassed, she secreted the mistake away. Later that evening, she experienced a cramps so I helped her apply the medicine properly. She disappeared momentarily into her bedroom afterwards. Wondering what was up, I investigated. "It smells nice in here, Mom," I said, "Did you put on lotion?" She answered that she had just applied her medicine. The medicine that was still in my hand. "Can you show me?" I asked gently, keeping my face expressionless as she handed me her bottle of hair mousse. From this point forward, I stopped fighting for my mother's independence and starting fighting for her life.

Up until then, I had ignored clear signs leading in that direction...not wanting to face facts. Mom is great... (No, Amy. Stop lying to yourself.)...Mom does better with routine. I usually drive her in my parents' car but the roads were bad so I opted instead for my four-wheel drive truck. I neglected to check if my mother had put on her seat belt and, as we were driving, she suddenly remembered. Before I could stop her, she grabbed the handle of the passenger side door and it swung all the way open. With what I consider a nifty piece of stunt driving, I threw the upper part of my body across my mother, pinning her in place while careening to the side of the road to stop. At that point, I had rationalized, It could happen to anybody.

I just re-read what I wrote and realized that I'd made another common mistake that should have alerted me to how very serious this was:  Blaming myself for not checking my mother's seat belt. If I truly believed that she was of sound mind, I wouldn't have had to check a rationale, competent adult's ability to keep themselves safe. Again...my head was in the sand. Self-reflection sucks.

This particular week has been a waiting game as I'm never sure what's going to appear behind Door Number 2. The view out her window, that my sister-in-law and I had been so certain of, is alternatively loathed and loved. Today, I was given a gift as a goose had landed on a storage container like a weird but wonderful weather vane. My mother was enchanted. She rarely experiences moments where she can just enjoy the moment. I was so grateful for that stupid goose.

She keeps me on my toes. I am trying to contain my presence in her new space to just a corner of her bedroom. If I accidentally venture out of my small territory, I pay the price because she keeps throwing out my toothbrush, adopting my hair brush, and inexplicably refrigerating my 100 calorie veggie straws. 

My time here grows short as staff begins taking on a more prominent role in her care and daily routine and I start to fade like the photo that Marty McFly holds during his stage performance on "Back to the Future."  The only mystery that I will have left to solve is: How will I leave my mother here alone?

PART IV: Whereupon Amy decides to leave her old life behind and move into an Assisted Living community (whether they want her to or not)

 

My role as "bright-eyed, bushy-tailed optimist" hit a bit of a snag today. My "bubbly," patient persona popped. It may have been the lack of sleep as I wrestled my Dad's chair, for what feels like the thousandth time, across the living room for an accessible outlet so I could rest, crunched up like a hard taco shell. It may be the lack of food as only residents are allowed in the dining facility while I subside on string cheese and vegetable straws. It may be the wild roller coaster of emotions I've been trying to balance as my mom valiantly struggles to adapt to this harsh transition of never having been alone in 85 years to now living "independently" while still under a microscope of watchful, controlling eyes. 

I've experienced small, isolated break-downs throughout the week (The night-shift staff found me curled on the corridor carpet bawling and gave me an impressive pep-talk) but this morning, the floating feather landed on the wildly wobbling heap of stinking trash that is my life, and I crashed. 

 Suffering from a poor night's sleep in a strange place with only thoughts of her family's betrayal to keep her warm, my mom emerged from her den like a ravenous wolf, armed to the tooth with plans for revenge with a rolled blueprint detailing her escape tucked under her arm. Surprisingly, she was nor receptive to my offer of tea. I won't tell you what she told me to do when I invited her to gaze out her window at the peaceful scene of geese and ducks floating on the pond. Let's just say that it was neither polite or anatomically possible.

Not knowing what was going on, my brother sent a helpful text wondering if perhaps I should be giving Mom some alone-time so she can start building up to the idea that she'll be on her own soon. As I'm sure you guessed, I found this suggestion very helpful and messaged him back my gratitude for his wisdom and insight. 

Of course, he didn't know that that has been exactly what I've been doing...that I, in fact had a schedule tentatively titled "Operation Amy Phrase-Out" (Sub-titled: How to abandon your loving mother to the care of strangers in 72 easy steps." Sub-heading 1:  "Your ticket to hell."). I've been lurking around this facility like Barney Fife trying to crack a case. Peering through the rectangular window of a cut-out newspaper. Hiding behind potted plants. Soldier-crawling over carpets.

This morning was scheduled for a half day of an Amy-free existence...which most people would call "living the dream." As I prepared to leave (aka "flee for my life"), I worried that, during my absence, my infuriated mother would MacGyver seemingly innocuous items in her apartment into a weapon of mass destruction but I couldn't worry about the plight of the world right now. It was time to save myself. 

In my panic, I managed to grab my grading because, after all, when one is fleeing for one's life, one must still bear in mind that report cards are due Friday. I failed to bring my car keys, cash, or a charger for my alarmingly low-battery phone. I escaped outside, taking a deep breath of that crisp, clear, 40 degree morning air and also realized I'd forgotten my coat. My husband chose this moment to call. Let's just say my first words were not "hello" and he immediately chided me for my salty language. I immediately hung up on him (to conserve my battery).

Walking around a college town sporting my own alma mater's sweatshirt turned out to be an invitation to comment from almost everyone I encountered. I lacked the necessary energy to defend my educational decisions to strangers. I peered longingly in cafe windows like the Little Match Girl and considered looking for a tin cup to shake for change but realized that my sweatshirt would repel charitable donations. I stomped like an angry, bitter troll across the metal lift bridge extending over the Erie Canal and, for the first time ever, failed to sing the stupid song. I cursed myself for my selfishness. My poor mother was dealing with the most traumatic time in her life and I was out here, throwing a temper tantrum. 

I trudged back.

It was almost lunchtime so I slipped into the downstairs lounge to see if my little bear would emerge for a meal. I watched as an aide led my mother into the room and set her, horrifically, in the chair next to mine. I froze. My little mother...my brave little mother...sat there compliantly, looking neither to the left or the right, shaking...not realizing that her daughter was within arm's reach...waiting to be told that lunch was ready. I sat there next to her with tears streaming down my face, 

I won't lie to you. I hate my life right now. I know it will get better, I know it will, But right now...

PART III: Whereupon Amy decides to leave her old life behind and move into an Assisted Living community (whether they want her to or not)

 Dawn rose on our first morning in Mom's new apartment. It had been a long night and we stared groggily at one another. I held my breath. Would we be teammates or adversaries today? 

We watched the geese, mated pairs, swim in lazy circles in the pond outside her window. Finally, she spoke. "So...what happens today?" Trying to maintain a calm expression, my spirits soared. This was not the woman who, hours ago, had threatened to run away like a little hobo. The woman who had gathered up three months of fear, frustration, uncertainty, disappointment, angst, anger, confusion, and loneliness and packed it efficiently into an emotional nuclear bomb to drop on her nearest living relative (although I wasn't sure how long I was for this world...I hid my sister-in-law's hammer in case Mom got any ideas while I was sleeping) had disappeared like a bad dream and my mother...my brave, strong, selfless, caring mother was back. 

First on the agenda was to set some reasonable expectations. Today was not going to be a "great" day. Probably not even a "good" day. Today, we would settle and celebrate an "okay" day. Okay? Okay.

Mom surprised me by deciding to eat breakfast in the residents' dining room. She successfully managed the lock on her apartment door and we navigated the corridors by identifying two predominate landmarks...heaven help us if that giant plant ever dies. As we walked, I compared her to Mary Tyler Moore, singing, "You're gonna to make it after all..." Mom wasn't impressed. "You know, she's dead," she told me bluntly and then mumbled something else. I think it was: "and I wish you were too" but I'm not sure. 

As we approached the dining room, I grabbed her arm. "Hey Mom, at 10:30, there's a lecture on Julius Caesar. Doesn't that sound fun? Can we go?" She stared at me, incredulous. I watched her warily eye the exits and realized that I might have a flight risk on my hands again. "Never mind," I quickly said. "No...no. If you want to go, we'll go," she assured me before disappearing into the dining room. 

She emerged, a little over an hour later, with Nancy who was similarly dressed in a little denim jacket like my mother. Should my mother stand on Nancy's shoulders, I would still tower over the two of them but they nevertheless had the makings of a bad-ass biker gang as they strolled over to me. Nancy gave us the lay of the land and invited us back to her apartment to see her hair curlers after I had complimented her meticulous reverse Quaker Oats guy style. I was, of course, suspicious of Nancy. Who knew what kind of shady things she might be up to but, as we were intent on having an okay day and we still had a half hour to kill before our educational lecture began, we threw caution to the wind. Nancy, as it turns out, has had a fiancee for the past thirty years who is currently in a nursing home in Medina. Her hobbies include reading acclaimed author Danielle Steel's novels and peeping out the window at parking lot people. She showed us her paper bag full of very painful-looking hair curlers. For some odd reason, Nancy decided to pass on the Julius Caesar lecture. "See you at dinner, " she said, sending us on our way.

"Are we in the right place?" my mother asked as we sat in the lounge with about four other people. "It's still early," I reassured her, delighted that we'd managed to score good seats. She glanced at her watch. "It's 10:40," she told me. "What time was this supposed to start?" I  stared down at the ground before answering, "10:30."

The activity director arrived, without a toga. Disappointed, I offered to grab her the sheet off of Mom's bed. She politely declined. As she shared the events leading up to Caesar's infamous death, a resident called bs on the number of stab wounds. "Did someone count them?" he asked, "It's not like they had CSI back then." Excellent point, I thought. The poor activity director faltered beneath the weight of my elevated expectations. I had mistakenly believed that I might have been eligible for additional college credits after this enlightening experience. I had been thinking about calling my curriculum director to see if I could count this as professional development.  Undeterred, I decided we should ride the wave of after-lecture traffic into the activities room for a rousing game of Pokeno. "What's Pokeno?" my mother asked. I shrugged. Hell if I know. But I was full on-board trusting Julie the cruise director to not lead us astray. I looked around for Gopher, Doc, and Isaac but they must have been busy straightening out a romantic entanglement caused by a silly misunderstanding somewhere else on the ship.

As Mom and I stepped into the room, a shriek of epic proportions was unleashed. "Where...are...your masks?!?!" a rabid resident yelled. "Does she work for the airline?" my mother asked as Julie launched herself across the room to take the brunt of the verbal bullets for us. I steered Mom out of the room. As we looked for our landmarks, Mom asked how I had enjoyed my lecture. I admitted that it wasn't quite what I envisioned (podium, PowerPoint, video montages, artifacts, ect). "What did you think, Mom?" I asked as she threw herself bodily against her apartment door, wrestling with the lock to get it open. She paused a moment in this endeavor to smile at me. "It was okay."

Et tu, mother?

PART II: Whereupon Amy decides to leave her old life behind and move into an Assisted Living community (whether they want her to or not)

Thanks to the combined efforts of six able-bodied adults which consisted of five actual laborers and me needlessly bossing them about, we were able to move my mom in just over a record-breaking three hours. We could have shaved two and a half hours off of our time if we'd all just sat down, sipped our coffee, and let my nephew Colby move it all himself while we argued with my sister-in-law's declaration that pillow-fighting was a contender as a future Olympic event but I digress. 
 

Happily, Brad and I missed out on the unloading portion of the trip as we popped into Stuff-Mart to purchase a mounting bracket for a television that we then later decided did not need to be mounted. We were accused by our indignant moving company that it was all a ruse and that we'd actually been parked surreptitiously in the back parking lot, monitoring their progress with binoculars. I tried to explain that those binoculars were for birds, to no avail.

Moving complete (I had only chipped one nail because I had to crack open my own Pepsi...Colby wouldn't put down the mechanized recliner he'd been carrying to help me...so selfish), all that was left was to move Mom in the next day. This gap in time had interfered with my sleep the previous evening:

2:00 am

Amy: (poke, poke) Brad, are you awake?

Brad: Huh? Yeah.

Amy: How am I going to watch TV tonight?

Brad: We'll figure something out. Go to sleep.

3:00 am

Amy: (poke, poke) Don't we have a tiny TV upstairs? Do you think we could find a way to hook it up?

("We" is always a fun term to toss around with Brad Mosiman)

Brad:  I'm sure we can figure out something. Go to sleep.

4:00 am

Amy: (poke, poke) Brad...?

Brad: (sighing) Yeah?

Amy: Can we get doughnuts in the morning?

Brad: Yeah.

So with my mother's monstrous television installed over at her apartment (but mysteriously NOT bracketed to the wall), Brad heroically hooked up a postage stamp-sized screen for us to watch during our final evening at the house. "Don't trouble yourself," I had dramatically announced when we awoke that morning at the break of dawn, "it's nothing to lose sleep over." I had begun downloading one-woman puppet shows with which to amuse my mother at 5:00 am so I was feeling prepared.

The entire household appreciated Brad's efforts. Sitting on the couch with my mom, my Aunt Sally leaned forward and squinted. "Vee? Where is your magnifying glass?" We discovered VERY quickly, that when it comes to televisions, size definitely DOES matter. "Are we all done?" Colby asked, clapping his hands and giving a little half-circle boxer dance. He was apparently ready to go another round. "Can we move the couch closer to the TV?" I asked. So with Colby manning one side and the rest of us wrestling with the other, we inched the couch to within a couple of feet of the television. "Can you see the TV okay?" Brad asked my mom. "What TV?" she wondered. Brad glared at me.

Later that evening, after everyone had left, I dashed off a picture of Mom and I "roughing it" to my niece Fallanne. She was compassionately quick to respond:

Fallanne:  At least you have that big screen TV to keep you busy!

Apparently, she blew up the picture I sent her for a closer look.

Fallanne:  What are you watching?

Amy:  Disney's Playhouse. It was either that or porn.

Fallanne: I'm concerned what sort of influence you are on my dear grandmother.

Good thing I refrained from telling Miss Fallanne about the mixed drinks and strippers I'd ordered.

PART I: Whereupon Amy decides to leave her old life behind and move into an Assisted Living community (whether they want her to or not)

"I think I'll turn on the radio," my mom said, interrupting the lukewarm frozen entry "meal" that I had so painstakingly microwaved for her.  It was either that or burn her another grilled cheese sandwich. My mother is obviously flourishing under my doting care.

"You can't," I told her as I enthusiastically chewed my barbecue steak bite like it was a teething ring. I waved her back into her seat.

"Why not?" she wondered, eyeing her "chicken" suspiciously. She was becoming wise to my wicked ways. She now peeks at the side-down portion of my grilled cheese before taking a cautious nibble. 

I spat out the rubber steak bite.

"We moved it to your apartment today," I told her. She sat down, disappointed. I offered to sing but that did not appear to impress her.

Sullen, she speared a questionable-looking piece of chicken with a tad more violence than necessary. Not for the first time, I wondered about my own personal safety around her.

"This needs salt," she announced, rising again.

I sighed. 

"Oh no," she said, pausing, "What?"

I lowered my head in shame. "I packed it," I admitted.

She sat down again and stared dismally at her "chicken."  Some daughter I'm turning out to be.

You gotta hand it to her. When my mother is trying to politely avoid food poisoning, she will NOT give up.

Rising once more, she headed into the other room.

"Where are you going?" I asked. If I had to eat this garbage...then by God, so did she.

"I need to use the restroom," she explained.

I sighed.

"Oh no," she said, stopping short, "What?"

 

We tried (and failed) to put the "fun" in funeral.

Aside from our differences in height, I tend to share a lot in common with my Aunt Sally. Edgy, inappropriate humor. Zero tolerance for ignorance, unkindness, and sloth. And an uncanny knack for effortlessly getting into trouble. 

In this particular instance, the fault was mine. I should have NEVER trusted the woman! Forgive me for thinking that, when one jumps in as a passenger to accompany a trusted family member to a solemn occasion, that family member would know where the hell they were going. My bad.

There were no red flags.

Well...there was a flag guy who tried his darnedest to park us in an efficient, organized fashion. Silly man. We had arrived at the funeral home. Spoiler alert. Let me amend that: We had arrived at a funeral home. It's not like we'd never done this before. We walked in...dignified. Solemn. Sincere. We signed the little book. We carefully approached the bereaved. Aunt Sally extended her condolences, explaining that she was the beloved aunt of so & so. I heroically refrained from rolling my eyes. The bereaved, obviously overwrought and understandably confused, asked, "Who?" Aunt Sally shot me a look so I sailed in to clarify. Grasping our new acquaintance's hand comfortingly, I too, offered my sympathies, explaining my own questionable link to the family. He leaned in and repeated, "Who?" I took a step back and glanced around the room, realizing that there was not a single familiar face in there. A-W-K-W-A-R-D...awkward (My friend Sarah has little tune that accompanies the singing of this little ditty and it was rolling through my brain as I sought to graciously extricate myself from this uncomfortable situation). 

The funeral director valiantly took me by the elbow and guided us discreetly off to the side. I assume someone else was alerting the authorities that two lunatics were crashing funerals. "Who were you hoping to visit?" he asked. Oh no. This was only going to get worse. Flummoxed, I shrugged my shoulders in what I hoped was an adorable fashion. "I'm not sure," I admitted. My aunt punted what she thought the last name was while I confidently said that the first name began with an "h." I think. Desperate to get us out of the building, he scanned the goings-on listed on his competitor's schedules. Trying to lighten the mood, I told him that we were starting a new trend. "Some people bar hop," I smiled, "We funeral hop." He finally succeeded in sending us, smothering our giggles, out the door. 

Take II.

This time, we entered the building with a great deal more caution. We were determined not to leave a paper trail until we were certain that we were at the right place. Ah. Familiar faces! We again extended our condolences, this time,  to people who didn't stare at us like we'd sprouted additional heads, wings, and tails. Aunt Sally and I took nothing for granted this time...inching our way along trying to avoid catastrophe, disruption, and embarrassment. Whew! We made it!

Returning to the parking lot, victorious, we complimented ourselves on this successful outing. I waited patiently on the opposite side of my aunt's vehicle for her to unlock it. After a long pause, I heard her begin to stomp away in disgust. "Wrong vehicle," she shouted at me. I blame myself, naturally.

Even with our differences in height, my Aunt Sally TOWERS over me when it comes to getting into trouble!