Adventures in Senior Sitting....

My grandfather is a seventy-five year old, arch-conservative, ex-cop.  He is one of the greatest men I know.  Once, when I was getting a tattoo at fifteen years old (I know, I know) one of the tattoo artists realized who my grandfather was (it’s a small town).  He said, loudly, and I quote: “Everytime he arrested me he was just the coolest guy ever about the whole thing!”  That about sums up grandpa-- you can’t help but like him even when he’s arresting you.  He began living with my mother some ten or so years ago after his wife of forty-seven years, and my grandmother, passed away (may she rest in peace).  Since then grandpa and mom live together in something akin to domestic harmony when they aren’t fantasizing about clawing each other’s eyes out because grandpa can be frustrating and mom can be neurotic (In a good way).  My baby sister also factored into this happy home (as my mother says, we put the “fun” in “dysfunction”) until she decided to move to North Carolina with her boyfriend and child a few months ago.  Thus how I found myself with a need to create a blog in order to keep myself sane.  Mom has gone to visit Erin (the aforementioned sister) and I am now tasked with temporarily moving into her house to watch grandpa.  *cue creepy fifties cop show cliff hanger music*

To understand the admittedly fake music cue above and the need for a blog, one should first get an understanding of grandpa.  As mentioned before he is seventy-five, an ex cop and Bill O’Reilly’s biggest fan.  He loves Coca-Cola and god help you if you bring him Pepsi instead.  He hates communists and liberals and he thinks that I am both, but he loves me anyway.  HUAC has nothing, and I mean NOTHING, on the interrogative power of a seventy-five year old man disappointed that his favorite grandchild (sorry other grandkids) is a Democrat.  He enjoys randomly turning on porn during family gatherings and hates TV commercials.  Grandpa also has dementia.  Not necessarily beginning stages, but not severe yet either.  He is somewhere around inappropriate outbursts (in public.  Always in freakin’ public!) and less severe than going out to get the paper naked.  He also has mini-strokes.  Hence the need for a senior sitter.  The doctors aren’t sure why he is having these strokes and have no way to stop them.  Grandpa will continue to have the strokes for the rest of his life and sometimes they affect his mobility and speech.  Which pisses him off.  Grandpa is my favorite relative (sorry everyone else) and was the dominant father figure in my life until I was a teenager and began to forge a relationship with my own father.  Who grandpa also thinks is a communist and is a different subject for a different blog.  Grandpa is also slightly deaf and refuses to wear his hearing aids, which does not stop he and I from having some of the absolute best conversations I have ever had in my life.  Ever.  Nor does it stop him from telling me cop stories, which I love.

Today I took grandpa to Walmart, on the way there he insisted on listening to the Jewish radio station, even though we are not Jewish and were previously unaware of the existence of said radio station.  Once at Walmart with a Jewish religious pop song stuck in my head, I realized that there are two things a man with dementia should not have:  hearing aids that are turned off and a motorized cart.  In the half hour we were in Walmart I had a mild cardiac event.  I apologized to no less than four people that almost lost their lives at the hands of the cart my grandfather turned into a lethal weapon.  I lost my grandfather.  Twice.  I decided that whomever decides the speeds at which those fucking carts are capable of is a Satanist bent on watching the world burn.  And I got lectured by grandpa about the proper thickness of toilet paper and why that is important.  Loudly.  And he hit me with the cart.  Then yelled at me for being in his way.  Do we all understand the fake music cue now? Stay tuned-- I have an entire week more of senior sitting!