Crazy People

"Three-fourths of the people here suffer from dementia", diagnoses the four-hundred pound nurse who has to hold a built-in counter and the table in order to pull up and stand to walk with her walker back to the elevator. Not acknowledging a possible death wish, she gorges daily on sweets and starches. Still, she has a sweet side. She has been ordering Christmas gifts for staff members and her family.

A friend in California, the land of fruits and nuts, said I live with a bunch of crazy people. I disagree. It is like living in Slapout, AL (pop. 150) where everyone knows everyone and knows their quirks. I can even sit on my back porch and watch people steal from the salvage store drop-off box across the street. We know:

a.. Who never has a kind word to say about anyone not at her table. I sometimes wonder what happened to cause her milk of human kindness to curdle.
b.. Who wears white jeans every day.
c.. Who breaks, re-breaks, and re-breaks the sheet rock wall getting up from the table but it is not her fault.
d.. Who patiently puts a bib on his wife for every meal.
e.. Who has a bicycle horn on his walker so he can beep for more coffee.
f.. Who ran all of her children off.
g.. Who is a non-stop busybody nosing in everyone's business.
h.. Who continuously keeps residents upset by playing the game "Uproar".
i.. Who steals a quart of milk from the dining room every day.
j.. Who hit on another woman less than a week after his wife was placed in a nursing home.
k.. Who tells 1940s jokes over and over.
l.. Who holds hands while walking anywhere in the building.
m.. Who has been married for 66 years and he never flushes the commode out of spite for her.
n.. Who gets on a single thought at every meal and repeats it over and over.
o.. Who wants to be a Church of Christ preacher.
p.. Who gripes about the food at every meal and then calls her sons to bring her something to eat.
q.. Who is suicidally depressed because her daughter is in a nursing home.
r.. Who refuses to take her medications which drives her school counselor daughter up a wall.
s.. Who wears the same clothes every day.
t.. Who can't remember when to come down for meals but remembers every night she has a date to go dancing.
u.. Who thinks that escaping from her Alzheimer's caretakers is a fun game.
v.. Who is a ticket-taker at all the Vanderbilt games.
w.. Who is an alcoholic. (Most are not).
x.. Who steals apples from the fruit basket so she can fry apples in her kitchen.
y.. Which staff members care deeply about the residents and which care less.
z.. Who drinks a beer six-pack every day.

But as I sip my hot tea and look around the dining room, most of the folks are pretty nice and quiet. Guess the percentage of mental illness is about the same as among the staff at the two Mental Health Centers where I worked. I, of course, am teetotally sane.

AsA

Thanks to the latest AMA height/weight chart, I am now 6'6" tall.

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I've always been on record as saying I don't think kids should be getting condiments in schools. We should be teaching abstinence instead.