Too Popped To Poop

Oops, Reverse That, Switch It.

Mom always used to say that, "I'm just too pooped to pop!" She would say. I never knew exactly what she meant, I just thought it meant she was tired, which is probably what it was supposed to mean. I can see why she would be pooped, she was a mother of 3, a full-time nurse, and wife, and a prolific shopper, that's a lot of stuff.

These days she's pretty pooped, her health has not been so good, and I see her wearing down a bit. It is difficult to watch. Mom could always run circles around everyone, she was always so capable. These days the 3 of us kids pitch in more time to help get errands run, and pies bought. You know about my mom's pie thing right? She buys pies by the truckload, and always, always has a pie either fresh out of the oven or about to go in. Nobody even eats the pies anymore, except my dad, who darn well knows better than to refuse the gift of pie.

Dad still works the night shift after all of these years, he is hoping to retire in a couple of years, we look forward to that. It will be nice to see dad during the day again. Not only that, he's tired of the grind, and I don't blame him one bit for that. He drives the old Thunderbird to work, he's a slow driver, and gets the bird a lot, but he doesn't notice, or care, he's probably doing thought experiments anyway, the car pilots itself.

One morning dad left the car on auto pilot and ended up in someone's front yard. I guess after 30+ years of night shift, falling asleep one time is actually a pretty good record. Luckily, no one was hurt, except for dad's ego, and some innocent Aspen tree, which my parents immediately replaced. Dad went home, got mom and they went and planted a new tree that very moment. The owner's of the home said the new tree wasn't as good as the old tree. I don't know how they came to possess that knowledge, mom said the trees were very similar in size. You do what you can, after that, well...

Of course this isn't a new revelation, but it is difficult to see the parents slow down. Mom pretty much limits her trips to Walgreens, the grocery store, and the bank. She's always going to the bank, one would ask, what on earth is so important to go to the bank twice a week. I never actually go to my bank. I may step into the institution twice a year, and that's after putting it off for two months. I hate going into the bank.

I'm beaming with pride that mom has actually started using a debit card, heck, she's even got the visa check card which she sometimes forgets to use. I think the bank just sent it to her, they must have been reviewing their records and discovered my parents were the only members who did not have the card, so they sent it complimentary to any customer who has written more than 10,000 checks out of their account without ever bouncing one. We'll be out running errands and she'll say, "I need to stop at the bank." I can't help but ask "why?" Of course, she'll reply something like, "I need money to pick up my prescription."

"Mom," I ask, "can't you use your debit card for that?" Oh, she guesses so, but she needs cash for the post office, or something else. I give in, we go to the bank. At least there are no lines, everyone else is using their cards. My gosh, I use my card at the freakin' car wash. I never have cash on me, but I know I can get cash whenever I want, providing there is some in the bank of course.

Dad on the other hand does not know how to use his card. I'm not kidding. The man cannot figure it out. This is an educated man, a brilliant man, but he's befuddled on how to actually check out at the grocery store. That's why mom has to go to the bank all the time, she's got to get cash for dad. God I love them.

He has figured out how to surf the net though, and seems to do so quite often. I tried to show mom how to use email a few years ago before we went overseas. We went into dad's office, she sat down at the computer, I showed her how to log onto the internet, get on aol, check the email. I knew at that moment I would not be getting any emails from mom--ever. She humored me, I felt bad for trying, she seemed to feel embarrassed about it. I assured her it didn't matter at all, and that I could just email dad and he could print it up for her, or we could do things the old fashioned way, I would just call her.

Mom has never read my blog. The only posts she has ever read are those which I had printed up for her to read. It's probably better that way, she would get pissed about the pie thing, although I tease her about it. She knows I have blogged about her mean ass cat, and how the thing eats deli turkey and ham, not the brown sugar baked ham though, Precious only likes the honey ham. Can you believe that?

Dad has read my blog, and although he would never admit it, I'm sure he wonders where they went wrong. Don't worry dad, it's not your fault, well, that's not actually true, it could be genetic, you do have that one crazy sister afterall. They think these things do run in families. I remember my mom telling me years ago that "you never want to live in a town that has a looney bin." This from her experience as a young nurse working at the nut house. She went on to say, "most of the people in the town are relatives who moved closer to be around their family member in the mental hospital." And, "they end up staying, and most of them are just as crazy as the patients."

To this day she hates going into the town of Rawlings in Wyoming. The town does host a mental hospital, is that the p.c. way to say it? I don't even know. But I have to admit the town does have a certain "the hills have eyes" feel about it. I've noticed it myself.

This post continues to wander aimlessly much like my thoughts, so I suppose I will move on, and get going with the day. I've got to run to Walgreens and get mom's pills. She has already given me the cash to go pick 'em up for her.