A collection of recent Facebook posts and comments that illustrate how much fun it is to be raising a teenager and a 70-year-old parent at the same time.
So after facing snowmaggedon panic at Meijer and making a total idiot of myself chasing a receipt through the parking lot, I brought some lunch back to Mom. We heard a siren and there was a huge fire engine parked right in front of the house. Mom said “I didn’t push my emergency pendant, I’m sure I didn’t.” So I looked out and there was a van from the fire department. I said well, they wouldn’t have sent them they would send….uh-oh, there’s an ambulance. And here come the police, and there’s a sherriff’s car. Oh crap, are you sure you didn’t push the button?! Then I counted 6 other police cars with lights on heading up the street. After a couple of minutes, they all went away. I said well, maybe somebody else pushed THEIR button, lunch AND a show, what a neighborhood.
How a toothpick could stay lodged in our carpet despite vacuuming and moving furniture is a mystery to me. How my son could get it lodged so deep in his foot that we had to have it removed at Immediate Care Center is even more puzzling.
While in the waiting room during Mom’s knee replacement surgery I overheard a man using his cell phone to describe his romantic misadventures to his aunt. “But Aunt Catherine, I have to forgive her because I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE her!” was the conversation when I first arrived. A few moments later I learned that his devotion to her was true love, not just a physical attraction, because “You know she’s the ugliest woman I’ve ever been with.”
One out of every one man suffers from male pattern blindness. My husband and son are both afflicted. I may start a charity to help women with the costs of Excedrin and gas for emergency runs to church and school.
One of the disadvantages of living in a small town is that when you do something totally crazy, you usually run into someone you know. Soon the story of the crazy woman busting her mom out of the nursing home before she’d even been admitted will be all over town. Long story short, Mom stayed with us last night.
My son does not understand the concept of a “bland diet” recommended by the dr. Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce and bacon are probably not on the list.
It is not a good idea for a 13-year-old coughing from allergies, who has eaten a Joe’s Crab Shack steampot, to eat cinnamon bun ice cream before bed. By the way, you can wash Legos off in the dishwasher. Discovered this at 1 a.m.
Got a note from the county schools that my 12-year-old passed his random drug test. Geez, what a relief.
My mom never wanted us to yell up the stairs so I guess it is OK that my son texts me from the upstairs bathroom that we are out of toilet paper.
Sunday mornings during ski season I go downstairs to see how many boys have spent the night and then try to figure out who left what clothes here, rather like a frat house.
An argument with my Mom about sodium, a trip to Meijer in the cold wind and rain, broke my favorite umbrella in the car door, Aaaaaand, it’s the keys in the Meijer toilet for the win. Yeah, I grabbed them before thinking of asking the greeter if there was something I could have pulled them out with but it could have been worse. It could have been Walmart. And back in the rain at the car my son said at times like these, we should say Gandalf quotes. Well, the only one I can think of is you shall not pass. So I asked which quote would be appropriate and he said YOU FOOLS! Yeah, pretty much. Happy freakin’ Monday y’all.
Here’s what I learned today from my son at the golf course. It’s OK to drive the golf cart on the green grass and the light green grass but not on the dark green grass (which is actually called the green). Don’t worry; he stopped me in time. It is apparently OK for a lady to drive around in a cart selling booze to people driving golf carts because she sells sodas and candy bars too and this is America. It is really fun to drive fast across the appropriate grass while sticking your golf club out the windshield like a sword yelling FOR NARNIA because we’re both nerds.
Last night I told my son after his birthday party that I was exhausted. He said why, you didn’t jump on trampolines for an hour. No, I just did dishes and laundry, drove the golf cart at practice, picked up the cake, loaded the car, drove all over 2 counties, entertained the parents, paid the bill….
In the waiting room of Mom’s urologist, I heard a woman reading her medical history questionnaire out loud. This woman was probably 40 or 50 and her elderly mother had to help her with the hard words, which the woman spelled out. I was able to keep a straight face during u-r-i-n-a-t-i-o-n and the mother’s explanation (‘that’s when you pee-pee”). Fortunately my mom came out and we were able to flee before the woman got to any questions about i-n-t-e-r-c-o-u-r-s-e.
The last time I took my mom to that office, she came out to get me to schedule her next appointment. As we walked to the desk, she told me the results of her exam; she still had a slight infection. What she MEANT to say was “I still have that organism in me.” Read the sentence slowly and you can probably figure out what she really said.
we told my son he has to get a haircut before the trip and that we will be dressing in nice clothes for the baptism in MN. He said we should show up barefoot and wearing holey jeans and say this is our native heritage. I can’t even get too mad because it sounds like something I would have said to my mom.
Thanks for all the birthday wishes and to those who texted yesterday. My birthday began with a mad dash down the freeway in my nightshirt to pick up Mom’s pain pills she forgot to pack and ended at a campground in Minnesota after 15 hours on the road.
The boys are back in town, oh yeah! Laundry is spinning, photos are being downloaded. My husband has declared my son is “fearless” when it comes to rock climbing, bridge catwalking, rapelling, whitewater rafting, and paintball. Horseback riding, well the horse was too slow. Hubby and another dad were the only ones who fell out of the raft. Mr. Fearless, after inspecting the early birthday gift (golf clubs), fell asleep on the couch.
This is an excerpt from an actual permission slip sent home by my son’s high school club. Cryptozoology Club is planning a Sasquatch hunt. While some people may laugh at the idea of Sasquatch, the animal is studied by a very real branch of science called Cryptozoology. To help further our club’s own studies of the animal, two members of the KY Bigfoot Research Organization have agreed to take our club on a “hunt.” We will be camping at Jefferson Memorial Forest Friday, September 21st and returning home Saturday, September 22nd. During this time, we will have a Q&A/presentation from our Bigfoot researchers, and visit the sites of several recent Sasquatch sightings, looking for any evidence of the animal. We will break camp the following morning; breakfast will be eaten at a nearby restaurant during the return trip.
Pulled up to the medical building to pick up Mom up and discovered that one front tire was totally flat. I was afraid to attempt to change it because I was sitting in the fire lane near the “ambulance only” entrance and that was an accident waiting to happen. It was very hot outside, but Mom insisted we could wait in the car with the doors open. As I spoke to the AAA dispatch employee over my cell phone, Mom turned to me and said “Tell them to HURRY.” My reply to her after I hung up was “I said we were in the fire lane of the hospital; I think the HURRY is implied.”
I gave my son a big pile of clean laundry and said I felt like Dobby the house elf. I got halfway down the hall and he said Hey Dobby and threw me a sock. If you’ve read Harry Potter you get it.
Heard more details last night of my son’s culinary adventures from Friday. I am thankful my house is still standing. Long story short: He now knows the difference between wax paper and parchment paper.
Well, it has been quite a morning, starting with a hysterical phone call one minute before my alarm was to go off, continuing with calls, texts, and e-mails between me, my mother, my sister, and a nice lady in India (between my KY accent and her accent, reciting the flight number was a comedy of errors). I dropped Mom off at the airport and left her with the nice man from Delta, thinking of Dan Akroyd’s character in Driving Miss Daisy, who said “Goodybe, good luck, good Lord.”
Went to a wedding in a Catholic church and when it was over my son saw the basins of holy water and asked if the basin was for offering. I said no, it’s like the water we use in baptism. He said there’s no water in there, stuck his fingers in it and yep, there was water in there. I said he had contaminated the Catholic holy water with his Methodist fingers and we kept kidding him about it. He said he had a scratch on his finger and it was burning after touching the water. I guess I’m a bad mom because I thought it was HILARIOUS.
My son gave me my birthday gift this morning; he just couldn’t wait. It is an iPad case. I don’t have an iPad, yet? Hubby?
Later that day: I asked my son why he gave me the iPad case this morning when I didn’t have an iPad. He said “so you could carry it around and make it LOOK like you had one.”
I’ve managed to avoid the car rider line at the high school down to the last 2 weeks of school. I think a Friday when I’m running late and it’s raining calicoes and poodles and a wooden deer needs to be loaded into the back seat is not the best time for an inaugural run but that’s what happened.
The chips for Spanish class and the falafel for social studies are all finished. Now there is oil all over the kitchen. At least I managed to wait until the very last batch of chips before burning myself with hot vegetable oil and hubby has offered to take care of cleanup. It’s a good thing I only work part-time and only have one kid because otherwise I’d be passed out on the couch.
While waiting to pick Mom up outside the hospital, I made the mistake of smiling at a little old man in a wheelchair. The next thing I knew the orderlies were wheeling him to my car. NO, NO, NO, wrong car. When I tried to explain that the little man did NOT belong to me, I was asked “Are you sure?” Um, I know I’m nearsighted but I think I’m right on this one. He was a cute little old man, but I don’t need anyone else to take care of; thanks.
I told my son to text me when he got to his field trip destination out of state. One of the reasons he gave for possibly not doing that was “what if there is a zombie apocalypse?” In a text that night when I said “No Zombies” he replied “we shot one and ran over another one.”
When the dr. asked my son how he got the bad scrape on his leg, he never expected to hear “riding a mechanical bull.” He said that would not have been in his top 10 expected answers. I asked if he’d ever heard that one before and he admitted he had not. When I asked if there was a cure for head up the butt syndrome, I was informed that it doesn’t go away until a guy reaches about 30. (I had responses to this post that insinuated that 30 is a rather hopeful estimate)
Movie snacks: Junior Mints, Raisenettes, Skittles and … Popcorn with a side of jalapeños guess who got that?
My son is off to a week of scout camp and everything is packed tightly into a Rubbermaid footlocker. How in the world did those kids get to Hogwarts with everything in a trunk? They must have been really big or magical.
This one sums it up pretty well: nothing like getting your heart pumping at 5:30 a.m. Phone rang downstairs and it was just the snow day recorded message from school. But I was afraid it would be the hospital about Mom. so this is what it’s like to be part of the sandwich generation between an aging parent and a teenage son. Like I always say, every day’s an adventure.
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