RaisingDad

On Christmas Eve Day, while my father has been enthusiastically zzzzzzing, I have been in the attic busy finding and separating and rearranging all the holiday boxes that contain our holiday decorations. Boxes, boxes, and more boxes. Once Christmas is over, and we pack everything up, there will be  still more boxes.      Where do they end?      I'd ask my wife, but she'd only get mad. I don't mind the silent treatment, what I mind is the lack of womanly affection that comes with the silent treatment at no extra cost.      Every year, when I put them back in our attic, I stack them neatly and with great care. When the holiday comes rolling back around, I don't know how they get mixed in with all the other holiday boxes we have there, or who goes up there and mixes them in with all the other holiday boxes, but mixed in is the condition I find them in.      I don't...

Life does take some strange turns, and, unfortunately, we have no control of the steering wheel.      The other day I told my wife, "Honey, I'm not complaining, but babysitting an old man was not what I had in my mind when I retired."      She gave me The Look. I think the flowers on our kitchen table began to wilt from the invisible lasers that were emanating from her eyes.      "You can make your own coffee," she told me.      "That's not the only thing you'll be making on your own," her Look interjected.      "Honey, sweetie, baby" I interjected myself, "I'm just joking. You know me. I like to joke."      Hey, I like my coffee in the mornings. Among other things.      But it's true. I had no idea I'd be taking care of an almost 100-year-old man who eats more in three meals than I do in three days. He snacks all day l...

Yesterday Morning   My wife to my father: "Tomorrow you have a doctor's appointment."      My father to my wife: "Who has a doctor's appointment?"      " You have a doctor's appointment."      " I  have a doctor's appointment?"      "Yes, you have a doctor's appointment."      "Why?"      "It's your yearly check-up."      "My what?"      "Your yearly check-up."      "There something wrong with me?"      "No, it's just your yearly check-up."      "My yearly check-up?"      "Yes, your yearly check-up."      "Then there's nothing wrong with me?"      "No, Dad. there's nothing wrong with you."      "If there's nothing wrong with me, then why do I have to go...

Once upon a time, two Saturdays ago, my grandson had just been dropped off for a visit and wanted to race.      "Why not?" I thought to myself. He's only four-years-old. What chance does he have of beating me, The Great One? That's what they used to call me in back in school when I was on the track team. Well... that's what I used to call myself, but the nickname never stuck.      My grandson yells " GO! " and we're off like a flash. Make that two flashes.      My mind was working like the computer Steve Jobs could only dream about making, analyzing every movement of my body and making adjustments as required. My legs were moving like pistons in the engine of a Lamborghini. My lungs, taking in huge gobs of air, were like the after burners on the SR-71 Blackbird flying at MACH 3.      Man, I was in The Zone.    ...

I regret making fun of my father in the last story because God punished me for it.      This morning I went outside to pick up after my dog, when I was attacked--ATTACKED, I tell you--by a tiny moth. I didn't even notice it until it flew right into my ear. My left one. It didn't even give me a chance to swat it away by buzzing around annoyingly first. No, it was like one of those Smart Missiles that locates and then heads straight for its target.      One moment my ear was blissfully empty, and the next it had a moth in it. I didn't see it or feel it flying around, but I felt it go in my ear, so I did what anybody else would have done, I immediately used my finger to get it out. Unfortunately, I probably wedged it even further inside. The fortunate thing is that, even though it was small enough to fit in my ear, it was too big to go all the way down. With the exception of bumble bees, nothing that ...

There's a joke by a very funny and very dead comedian, Henny Youngman. He was known as the king of the one-liners. It goes (and I'm paraphrasing here):        "I went to the doctor the other day. I told him, 'Doc, it hurts when I do this.' He said, 'Then don't do that.'"        Did I ever tell you that several years back, I was having dizzy spells? Every time I stood up, if I got up too fast, my head would spin and I'd have to sit back down until I got my sea-legs again.      So I went to my General Practitioner. My family doctor, in other words. He's a good doctor. He's took the Hippocratic Oath and everything. Anyway...      At the office, I tell him, "Doc, I'm having dizzy spells. Every time I get up, I have to sit back down, because my head starts spinning. I don't know what's wrong."      So the doctor does what doctors do. He hems and haws...

Once upon a time, oh, say, three nights ago, my wife had made some menudo for Halloween Eve. Menudo is a Mexican stew made with hominy and tripe.      What?      You don't know what tripe is?      Trust me, you don't want to know.      My wife? She's a pretty smart lady. Menudo is exactly  the right thing to eat on a cold, cold night when you're busy handing out candies for Halloween. And if you spill the red broth on your shirt, you can even tell the innocent young trick-or-treaters it's blood.      Hang on a second... did I say "we"?     I meant "me".      Somehow, when it comes to getting off the couch to hand out the treats, my legs seem to be the only ones that work. But I don't mind. I've lost a lot of things when my Dad moved in with us. The use of the TV in the great room. The use of my favorite chair in th...

Today, I bathed my dogs.      Well, only one of the dogs is mine. The big one. The one I don't get embarrassed taking for a walk. The little yappy one belongs to my Dad. I feed him, wash him, take him to the vet, pay for his shots... but it's my Dad's.      When the Zombie Apocalypse comes, I know I can count on my dog to protect and defend me. My Dad's dog? The only thing I can count on him doing is giving away my hiding place with his incessant barking. Anyway...      I tell my father, "Dad, the dogs are wet. Don't let them in the house."      My father says, "What?"      I tell him, "I just washed the dogs. Don't let them in the house."      "Oh," he tells me back, "you washed the dogs? Where are they? I don't see them."      "They're outside, Dad. Don't let them in. They're still wet."   ...

My Dad hasn't been his typical self since we got back from the family reunion. He sniffles, he snots, he clears out a lot of phlegm from his throat with a lot of fanfare.      It doesn't do much for my appetite.      Under the best of circumstances, I don't sit at the table to eat with him anymore and I haven't for several years. I've moved to the kitchen counter, that's where I now sit and eat. It started a while back when my Dad started sneezing and blowing his nose at the table, using the same dirty handkerchief I think he's had since he was stationed in the Philippines during World War Two, where it was so crusty and hard it saved his life by stopping a bullet shot from the gun of a Japanese soldier. I'm sure he must get new ones and throw the old ones in the hamper or the trash, but the thing is... I never see him do that.      Now, it's gotten worse. Sometimes I even have to eat up stairs. It...

My father wakes up early to go on his walks every morning.      Sometimes he wakes up VERY early, so it was a surprise that he was sleeping in late THIS morning. Well, not really. He's tired from our recent trip across country to his family reunion and he hasn't quite recovered yet.      Myself, I was taking advantage of his absence by reading the morning newspaper and enjoying a nice hot cup of the gourmet coffee my wife buys for me. I know she buys it for me, because my father prefers instant coffee. The cheapest brand.      When I look at my father drinking his fake coffee, I sniff my nose in a let-them-eat-cake kind of way and think to myself, "Man, how can he drink that stuff?"      My Dad, meanwhile, probably looks my way and thinks the same thing.      I'm done with the paper and working on my second cup of coffee when my father walks in. He's holding ...

After my Dad went off to search for the Lost Ark of the Covenant at his family reunion--and, unlike Indiana Jones, got lost--my wife thought it would be a good idea to buy him a Splash unit.      When I say she thought it would be a good idea, what I mean is I made the mistake of going for a long hike, and, while I was gone, that gave her enough time to go out and buy one without my permission. A Splash unit, I mean.      What's that? you ask.      Well, it's an expensive little doo-dad with an emergency button that, when pressed, is answered by highly trained emergency certified personnel who all probably make minimum wage. When you advertise that your personnel is highly trained that usually means they're poorly paid.      When the button is pressed, whoever answers has a list of phone numbers they're supposed t...

It was good to see everybody at my Dad's family reunion.      "Can we leave now?" I asked my wife.      If looks could kill there wouldn't have been anyone alive within a thousand-mile radius.      I can't get over it. According to the Law of Diminishing Returns, for every year that passes there should be less people at these reunions, but instead there always seems to be MORE . And all those additional family members are hard on my Dad, who doesn't consider his trip a success until he's unintentionally insulted every relative there. And some who aren't.      "Stand up straight," he told the wife of one of his brothers as she walked past him.      She's has osteoporosis.      "Are you pregnant?" he asked one of his nieces.      She's close to 60.      "Well, she looked pregnant," he shrugged...

After eating all of my wife's breakfast and even some of mine, my Dad goes into the bathroom of the hotel room we're staying in to get ready for this special day. He's in there for over an hour.      Over an hour!      I don't know what he's doing in there, especially since he was already in there for half the night keeping my wife and I awake with his midnight shenanigans. After he's done making himself beautiful for the family he hasn't seen since last year's reunion, he comes out and tells my wife that he couldn't find his shaving cream so he used one of her creams.      My wife's eyes go wide. All of her creams are expensive.      "Uh, which one did you use, Dad?" she asks him.      "I don't know," he tells her. "It was the one in the little bottle."      I know exactly the one he's talking bout.   ...

The next morning, my wife steps out to get us breakfast.      The hotel we're staying at has a delicious "free" hot breakfast. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, French toast... you know, the works. I say "free," because they're not fooling anybody. You and I both know their just adding the cost of it to the price of the room. Still, the breakfast is delicious.      Despite this, my Dad tells her, "Nothing for me. I'm not hungry."      Not hungry? After all that fussing around he did in the bathroom last night? I thought for sure he'd have worked up an appetite.      "Should I bring him something anyway?" she asks me, not wanting her father-in-law to start his morning without the most important meal of the day. She's good that way.      I tell her not to.      "You know how he is," I tell her. "If Dad says he's not hungry, he's not hungry....

We stay at a pretty nice place. For my Dad, it's nothing but the best. As long as I'm paying.      Kiddingly, before we left, I told him, "I got us a pretty good deal at the Motel 6, Dad."      "What?"      "The Motel 6."      "What about the Motel 6?"      "That's where we're staying. At the Motel 6. I got us a pretty good deal."      "We're not staying at the Motel 6."      "Why not? It's a perfectly good motel."      "We're not staying at the Motel 6."      "It's clean. It's cheap. And the guy from those Motel 6 commercials will personally leave the light on for us."      I laugh at my own bad joke.      "Well," my Dad says, his eyes starting to bulge out from the anxiety of having to stay at a sub-standard motel. I'm so evil sometimes, it makes me laugh. ...