I was talking with my buddy Maloney, when I mentioned that my father had recently been having trouble "dropping the kids off at the pool," if you get my drift. We've tried increasing the fiber in his diet, but the problem with that is it will just sit there on his plate until it sprouts legs and walks off on its own. We've also tried an over-the-counter laxative, but that hasn't worked, either.
I could swear that my father's digestive system is perfectly fine, and he's just pretending to be constipated to get attention, but who would believe me? My wife certainly doesn't.
"I believe you," my friend Maloney told me.
"You do?" I asked him.
This came to me as somewhat of a shock. What Maloney does best is turn every conversation about someone else into a conversation about himself, so his short, three-word belief in me caught me by surprise.
"Of course I do," Maloney confirmed. "The same thing happened to my mother-in-law back when she used to live with us."
See what I mean?
"It got so bad," Maloney went on, "that we had to take her to the doctor. Apparently, her wallet was constipated too, because we ended up having to pay for the visit. We always had to pay for everything with her. In fact..."
"So what happened?" I asked before my friend went off in a different direction, which he has a tendency to do.
"Well, the doctor prescribed a laxative for her. We paid for that, too."
The last thing I wanted to hear about was the bathroom problems of Maloney's elderly mother-in-law, but there was something oddly compelling in his story.
"This was the only time I've ever felt sorry for her," Maloney continued. "My wife helps her with her medicine, and so she gave her one pill."
"One pill?" I asked. A single pill didn't sound like much.
"One pill," Maloney confirmed. "The directions said for her to take only one pill before bedtime, and that's exactly what Gail gave her. The mistake my wife made was she left the bottle of pills with her mother. Her mother must have figured, 'If one pill is good, then two must be better.' So she took three! Gail knows this, because she counted all the pills that were left in the bottle. Well, let's just say the pills worked too well. Sometime during the night, they did their magic, and, when she woke up, it was like that horse's head scene in The Godfather. You know the scene. That movie producer doesn't want to give a movie role to Don Corleone's godson, so Don Corleone sends Tom Hagen to Hollywood to take care of the problem. Man, what a great movie..."
"You were telling me about your mother-in-law," I reminded my friend.
"I was?" Maloney asked, and then thought about it.
"I was," he finally concluded.
"My point is," he said, making his way back to his point, "the next morning after meeting with Tom Hagen, the movie producer wakes up and finds a horse's head in his bed. there's blood everywhere. It's a message from the Godfather. 'I can get to you at any time," was Don Corleone's message, so the movie producer gives Johnny Fontaine the movie role. In the book he gets an Oscar."
"The movie producer?"
"Johnny Fontaine, for Best Actor."
"And your mother-in-law?"
"What about my mother-in-law?"
"Did she wake up with a horse's head in her bed?"
"I wish she woke up with a horse's head in her bed. No, what happened was she woke up in a bed full of shit."
"She did?"
"Damn skippy," Maloney assured me. "She probably woke up thinking, 'What the fudge? It stinks in here. Is my daughter cooking breakfast again?' Then, like that movie producer, she must have reached under the blankets, drew her hand back, and... and... well, let's just say it wasn't horse's blood that her hand would have been covered with. The first thing she probably thought was, 'I wonder what my son-in-law was up to last night?'"
I thought about Maloney's mother-in-law, and then I thought about my own elderly father.
Do I want to live to be 96?
Heck no.
But what choice do I have?
Do I want to live to be 96?
Heck no.
But what choice do I have?
My wife has a stronger stomach than I do, most women do. Men are weak. If my father ever left us a surprise present in his bed for us, I would just take all the sheets, all the blankets, and everything else and throw them into our neighbor's trashcan and be done with it. My wife, on the other hand, would have probably laundered everything.
Which is what Maloney's wife, Gail, did. Maloney said she washed them and then she washed them again. She added Clorox, Pine Sol, and probably even their dog's flea and tick shampoo. When she was done, she washed them again.
"The look on my mother-in-law's face was heart-breaking," Maloney told me, shaking his head sadly. "A look of shame and defeat. I felt for her. She kept asking Gail if she could help, but Gail told her not to worry, she had it under control. If my mother-in-law had asked me, I would have answered, "Sure you can help... QUIT SHITTING IN BED!"
"So what did your wife tell you?"
"Nothing. What could she say?"
"What did you tell your wife?"
Knowing Maloney, he had to have told her something.
"I was sympathetic," he said. "I told her, 'Honey... don't you ever put those sheets on our bed."
Which is what Maloney's wife, Gail, did. Maloney said she washed them and then she washed them again. She added Clorox, Pine Sol, and probably even their dog's flea and tick shampoo. When she was done, she washed them again.
"The look on my mother-in-law's face was heart-breaking," Maloney told me, shaking his head sadly. "A look of shame and defeat. I felt for her. She kept asking Gail if she could help, but Gail told her not to worry, she had it under control. If my mother-in-law had asked me, I would have answered, "Sure you can help... QUIT SHITTING IN BED!"
"So what did your wife tell you?"
"Nothing. What could she say?"
"What did you tell your wife?"
Knowing Maloney, he had to have told her something.
"I was sympathetic," he said. "I told her, 'Honey... don't you ever put those sheets on our bed."
Raising My Father
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
jimduchene.blogspot.com American Chimpanzee
@JimDuchene
No comments:
Post a Comment