THE INVASION OF THE ABSENTEE POLICE

Dean Richardson saved the day

An emotionally stirring day today. I don't mean like tears, but sometimes wrenching sorrow over the downhill run Jr seems to have taken in the last 5 days. And sometimes rage, like when the two liars of the nursing home experience noted in LEAVE THAT LIAR ALONE drove up the driveway and walked in the door. I'd been talking with Ross Richardson on the phone about looking into an in-home-care place for a little bit of help to give me a bit of time for my own life, which is backed up behind a dam. That's ok. Dams make energy. Not Social Services or any of that.

Sue at the radio station told me of a place "run by real Christian people who have Christian people working for them." I don't know what that tells me. I'd guess everybody working at the nursing home was Christian. Didn't look like Buddhists or Hindus were in there. I didn't even see a Hindu doctor. I believe she meant people who have a heart for caring and don't treat helpless people like stacks of lumber. To anybody who knows a bit of history, Christian means something quite different from caring. I'll get in touch with the place for word from them what they do. Also will talk with a woman I know who does that freelance.

Like the two women who came in earlier, this was the first time they've been here since he left the nursing home where they were lying about me to keep him in there against his will and him paying. They weren't going to pay for it. Only one of them called since he's been home, once. Before he landed in the nursing home either one of them came to see him 5 minutes every 2 to 3 months. 2.5 months in the nursing home, they visited him maybe 3 times. Again, after 5 minutes, "Love you uncle Junior," and they're gone.

I saw them coming up the driveway and picked up a book I'm reading, Red Sorghum, by Mo Yan. Japanese occupation of China just before WW2. When they walked in the door, the one in front said, "Where's Jr?" I pointed to the bedroom door and said, "In there." I went on reading and they went into the bedroom and woke him up. As I'd been characterized by them incompetent and unable, I thought I'd let them have a gander at what incompetence can be. They found a fairly bad scrape on Jr's arm, which I'd asked him to let me treat and he wouldn't have it. One asked me where some bandages and ointments and iodine are. "I don't know. Bathroom, I guess." How else could somebody incompetent answer such a question? The kitchen was inspected, the house in general inspected.

Last night I brought some dishes and utensils from home to wash them here. My water quit working in such a way I need some daylight time at home to fix it. While I'm not there, it's no problem the water doesn't work. So I brought a bag of things I've used since the water went out and let pile up in the sink. I soaked them overnight and washed all of them this morning, too many for the drying rack. I took the first dry ones and stacked them on the counter to the left of the sink, then filled the drying rack again. The rack was full and a stack of bowls, glasses and mugs greeted the kitchen inspection. In the night Jr went on an unconscious search for a pair of pants that fit right, an ongoing issue. He'd strewn quite a lot of pants and shirts and underwear about on the floor in the bedroom. I hadn't picked them up yet, as he'd stayed in the bed all day and I wanted to let him rest. They were great for the incompetence checklist. Only contents of refrigerator missed inspection, and that probably because she didn't want to be so obvious.

A pile of newspapers lay on the floor waiting for Dean Richardson to pick them up. He brings me USA Todays, Times and New Yorkers, not every one, just now and then. He picks them up because Betty uses them in the duck pen. Another eyesore for the inspection. I was sitting here amusing myself with thoughts of what I could have done with 5 minutes notice. I'd have put the liquor bottle on the coffee table and some in a glass. It might have been fun to have a handgun on the coffee table too. Add a little edge to it. That ought to be enough. Anything said about the liquor, I'd offer them some. "Sit down. Have a drink. Rest your bones." Anything said about the gun, I could say, "I shoot cats."

While they were quizzing Jr about his care, in the pages I was reading one man killed eight others in a revenge slaying, and the Japanese surrounded a village killing everybody and burning it. That was another contributor to my inner mirth, thinking how interesting a coincidence the emotional intensity of what I was reading matched what was going on inside. These are both women I used to like an awful lot, thought of them as my friends, you know, casually, not life depending on it. I see them now as meddlers. It's not that they're going to do anything; they'll just be in charge. One of the questions in Jr's bedtime quiz show was when he last had a bath. He said, "I take a bath every day." It was then I realized he didn't know who they were. This is what the services women do, walk in the door total strangers, ask personal questions, check for this, check for that, fix this, fix that and leave. Take a bath every day was the clue, because we've learned the experiential way that you never volunteer information to any of those people. You only answer a direct question with a word or phrase. Anything you volunteer will be used against you at a later date. It amused me to see he could be as slick unconscious as he can be conscious. He was giving them the answers they wanted to hear.

On the way out the door, one of them said to me in that emphatic deadpan delivery for smart remarks, "Don't work too hard, TJ." I replied in the same tone, "It's not possible. Don't worry about it." She said, like a nine year old princess, "I see that. I won't worry." The other one kept looking at me on her way out the door like she wanted to see me smile. I didn't have one to show. They'd turned on the ceiling fan over his bed. As soon as they were out the door I went in to turn it off. When I was at the bedroom door, he was getting up. The switch was beside the door and I flipped it. He said, "That's what I was going to do. Who was that?" I told him their names. They didn't ring a bell. I was more specific, like relationship with him. He still didn't get it. He said he thought they were from one of them places that want to put him in a nursing home. I said, "Same differ'nce."

Then Dean Richardson drove up and came in to sit and talk. Hearing Dean's voice, Jr got up and came in here to visit. I was thinking this was good timing, because Dean makes good conversation, we laugh and talk about all kinds of things. He was telling us somebody wrecked a motorcycle on Jane Taylor Mountain earlier today. We all knew which curve. He told that earlier today he saw a rider on a motorcycle coming the other way on the yellow line in a curve, leaning into Dean's lane. After awhile, Jr got up and pushed his 2-wheeler to the bedroom. He needed to lie down. Dean and I went and sat on the porch awhile, him telling his experience working on the Parkway with motorcycle casualties and where they happen. I told him about the invasion of the absentee police that left just a few minutes before he arrived.