Gary caught a glimpse of them first, the older teenage boys peering through the porch door. He bellowed at them to leave, which startled me in the kitchen but by the time, I got to the living room, they were gone.
It wasn’t long before they were back; this time they had
what appeared to be gasoline which they were pouring around the perimeter of
our house. Gary lept from his recliner
in an attempt to apprehend them. Well, “lept”
is a bit of a stretch. Fell face first
onto the floor in an attempt to leap from the chair is a little more
accurate. I am, of course, unable to lift
him and he was more interested in catching the would-be arsonists than he was
in standing up so he resisted my attempts to help and ended up flailing
around the floor while screaming at the arsonists.
I called the Fire Department to get him off the floor
(again) and met them outside to give them a heads up. They were wonderful (as always) and told him
they caught the (imaginary) would-be arsonists and the police hauled them away. That settled him down enough that
the 6 volunteers were able to pick him up and get him into bed.
Since he didn’t sleep at all last night (and I mean not at
all), I was hoping he would drift off to sleep (and really hoping I could do
the same). It’s been an especially
difficult 24 hours and I could use some calm.
Instead of calm, however, I’m listening to Gary call the neighbors to warn
them of the imaginary arsonists and I am trying to figure out the least obtrusive
and least embarrassing way to un-warn them.
And since I’m going for least embarrassing, I’m thinking about “So sorry to trouble you. I hope Gary didn’t alarm you earlier because there were, in fact, no arsonists on our porch. Yes, you did see the fire company here but that’s because Gary fell out of his chair in an attempt to apprehend the imaginary arsonists that exist only as a by-product of this horrible dementia that is ravaging his brain and destroying our lives.”
But hey, at least I don’t have to explain the tissue-box
skunks or the ghost with the one-legged pants.
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