Tell Your Story.

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Whitney Button

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Sweet Potatoes Part II.

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Whitney Button

Lois is sweet enough to let me go to church on Sundays (I stay with her for 48 hours straight on Saturdays and Sundays) as long as I pick her up a cheeseburger and strawberry milkshake on my way home. I ask her every week if she’d like to go to church with me, and her response usually goes something like this:

Lois: “Do you know how exhausting it is for an old lady to get ready for church? I’m too old, and God understands that.”

Usually she takes her morning nap while I’m gone and when I get back I wake her up for lunch. When I got back from church this morning, however, Lois was waiting for me at the door…

Lois: “There’s something wrong with Baby!” (Baby is the most spoiled feral cat on the planet. She lives in Lois’ basement and only comes up to eat, which is about 5,000 times a day, and Lois obsesses over her CONSTANTLY.)

Me: “Why do you think there’s something wrong with Baby?”

Lois: “She must be sick because she refuses to eat anything!”

Me: “Well I fed her half of a can of wet food before I left for church this morning, so she can’t be too hungry.”

Lois: “BABY IS STARVING! SHE’S BEEN UP HERE MEOWING AND MEOWING AND MEOWING!”

Me: “Okay, settle down, I will put some food out for her…”

Lois: “I ALREADY PUT FOOD OUT FOR HER AND SHE REFUSES TO EAT ANY OF IT!”

By then I had managed to step into the house and I was able to see that there was a plate on the floor with mashed sweet potatoes on it. I made my way into the kitchen, and all together I counted 6 plates of sweet potatoes that were set out for Baby.

Oh boy, here we go again…

I picked up the plates and set them on the counter.

Lois: “Baby can’t get to her food if you put it up this high!”

Me: “I think Baby just needs some fresh food, so I will open up a new can for her…”

Lois: “I JUST OPENED UP A CAN! DON’T BE WASTEFUL!!”

Me: “Okay Lois, let me explain something…this is not cat food on these plates.”

Lois: “OF COURSE IT’S CAT FOOD!”

Me: “It is actually our leftovers from dinner last night.”

Lois: “We had CAT FOOD for dinner last night?!”

Me: (deep breath) “No, we did not have cat food. We had baked chicken and mashed sweet potatoes, and what you put on these plates for Baby is the leftover sweet potatoes.”

Lois: “Baby doesn’t like sweet potatoes.”

Me: “I know she doesn’t. Most cats don’t. So how about you let me open up a fresh can of cat food for her, okay?”

Lois cracked up: “Well NO WONDER she wouldn’t eat!”

Me: “Yep. No wonder.”

Lois: “Who the HELL thought it was a good idea to make cat food out of sweet potatoes?!”

Me: “You got me, Lois.”

Lois: “Well by golly, that’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of! Since when does a CAT enjoy eating POTATOES?”

Me: “I really don’t have an answer to that…”

Lois: “What brand is that cat food anyway?”

Me: “It’s ‘Fancy Feast’.”

Lois: “Fancy Feast MY ASS! What’s fancy about a sweet potato?”

Me: “There is absolutely nothing fancy about a sweet potato.”

Lois: “DARN RIGHT! Potatoes are the poor man’s food. Well, I guess I’d better call Baby upstairs for lunch…BABY? BABY? BAYYYYY-BEEEEEEEEE!”

Nobody Feeds Baby a Sweet Potato.

50 Good Years.

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Whitney Button

I was trying to help Lois get ready for bed, and as usual she ran through her check list for the night; reminding me to check all of the doors to make sure that they are all locked, check on the cat to make sure she’s got enough food, turn the heat up, etc.

Lois: “My god, there is just so much that you have to remember when you get old!”

Me: “Yeah, I guess there is a lot to remember.”

Lois: “I mean, seriously, don’t you think that people are living too long these days? It would make so much more sense for God to give us 50 good years and then on our 50th birthday He should let us conk off.”

Me: “As long as we conk off painlessly.”

Lois: “Well of course painlessly! I’m no martyr!”

Practical Joke.

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Whitney Button

I woke up at 2am this morning, because I could hear Lois rummaging through the kitchen cabinets. Quickly, I put on my slippers and stumbled toward her with my eyes only half open.

Me: “What are you doing, Lois?”

Lois was full of energy: “Well Good Morning! How are you today?”

Me, rubbing my eyes: “Lois, it’s only 2 in the morning, what are you doing up?”

Lois: “Oh, I just needed a little snack.”

And that was when I fully became aware of what was happening. There was Lois, clothed only in a white tank top, a pair of Depends, and slippers. But that wasn’t the strange part. The strange part was that she had her face and her head completely wrapped up with one of her sweaters, and all I could see were the whites of her eyes.

Me: “Um, Lois…? Is your head cold?”

Lois: “Well it was…but it isn’t anymore.”

Me: “Lois, you’re going to catch a cold if you stand in front of the refrigerator in your underwear. Can I help you with something? What kind of a snack do you want?”

Lois: “Oh, I don’t know…anything…PUMPKIN PIE!”

She shouted so suddenly that I jumped.

Lois laughed: “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Me: “That’s okay. Would you like whipped cream on it?”

Lois: “Well of course whipped cream. You can’t have pumpkin pie without whipped cream!”

Me: “Of course not.” I pulled everything that I needed out of the fridge, when Lois decided that she needed her pie to be heated up. (Lois does not have a microwave, so heating anything up takes FOREVER.)

Me: “Lois, since it’s 2 in the morning, would you mind just eating your pie cold? Midnight snacks are always cold.”

Lois: “But this pie is so OLD! I could get sick if I eat it before it’s warmed up!”

Me: “I bought the pie from Fred Meyer yesterday. It’s not too old. Plus, just so you know, I would give my left foot to be able to eat a cold piece of pumpkin pie right now, but I can’t since I’m on a ‘no-sugar’ diet, so I will just have to live vicariously through you.”

Lois: “You like COLD pumpkin pie?”

Me: “Yes I do. It’s my absolute favorite. Well, next to cold pizza.”

Lois looked a bit suspicious, but after she thought about it for a minute she smiled: “Well, okay then. For you…”

Me: “Thank you, Lois. One thing though…”

Lois: “What’s that?”

Me: “You’re going to have to uncover your mouth if you’re going to eat your snack.”

Lois laughed: “Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that!” I helped her to unwrap her head.

I laughed: “You know, I didn’t want to say anything, but you should see yourself right now. (This may seem unusual, but Lois is still at a stage in her dementia where she can snap out of it with the right cues.) You have your entire head wrapped up in your sweater, but you’re practically naked everywhere else!”

Lois felt around for her bare arms and legs and then she cracked up: “Boy, I must be quite a sight! You know…Sometimes I think that old age is just God playing a practical joke on us.”

Me: “You think so, huh?”

Lois: “Well yeah, I mean the urine alone would be enough to keep Him entertained!”

The Priest and the Acorn.

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Whitney Button

Father John delivers Communion to Joe and Dot’s house on Saturdays since it is becoming too difficult for them to go to church on a regular basis. Now that my schedule has changed, and I no longer work on the weekends, Dot enjoys keeping me in the loop about anything funny that happens during Saturday Communion.

This week, Dot met me at the door because she was so excited to tell me about Father’s latest visit.

Dot: “You’re never going to believe what happened to Father!”

Me: “Oh no…what is it this time?”

Dot: “Well, he got out of his car and started walking toward the house, and a nut fell from the tree and hit him right on the top of his head!”

I cracked up laughing because I could just picture the whole scene taking place.

Dot continued: “It just about scared him half to death because he didn’t know what it was that hit him at first. He thought that some kids were throwing rocks at him, so he held his Bible above his head and started running!”

Dot and I both just about fell out of our chairs laughing at that point.

Joe walked into the kitchen, grinning: “What are you ladies laughing about?”

Me: “Dot just told me about the acorn hitting Father on the top of his head!”

Joe laughed: “I don’t remember hearing about that?”

Dot: “Yeah, it happened this Saturday. Father was scared because he thought that someone was throwing rocks at him.”

Joe did a deep belly laugh: “So the nut clocked him right on the top of his head?! What are the chances of something like that happening?”

Me: “Well it’s never happened to me.”

Dot: “Me either.”

Joe: “Well he’ll probably never come back here again!”

Dot: “Of course he’ll come back, Joe! It was only a little old acorn that hit him.”

Joe: “Yeah, but he might have thought it was the Devil!”

Dot: “Oh Joe, he doesn’t think it was the devil.”

Joe: “How do you know? Priests only think about 2 things: God and the Devil. So if he doesn’t think that God threw the nut at his head, then who does that leave…?”

We all cracked up.

Me: “That’s a good point, Joe.”

Joe laughed: “Well, if nothing else it will help him to remember to put on his hat before he leaves his house in the morning!”

God and Binders.

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Whitney Button

I just watched the Presidential debate with Joe and Dot. Well, mostly just Dot because Joe slept through the whole thing and whenever he woke up for a brief moment, he’d just look at the TV and say, “Who’s doing all the YAPPING! YAP, YAP, YAP…”

Dot is extremely political, so she watches everything on the news that she can possibly find about this election, which I don’t mind at all because of course I’m interested in it as well. Dot usually keeps her comments and beliefs to herself, but tonight when I was tucking her into bed, her mind was racing.

Dot: “I think that people are worried about Romney being Mormon.”

Me: “Yeah, I think that you’re probably right about that.”

Dot: “They’re worried that he’ll be too strict and make everyone stop drinking caffeine and alcohol because Mormons don’t participate in those things.”

Me: “Well, yeah maybe…”

Dot: “Well I’ll tell you what, I’d sure be mad if someone tried to tell me to stop drinking coffee…but Mormon or not, at least Romney’s got a little God in him.“

I tried not to laugh, but I had to chuckle a little: “You don’t think Obama’s got God in him?”

Dot: “No, not Obama. He doesn’t even go to CHURCH and I think that’s just TERRIBLE!”

She was saying all of this as I was trying to put her eye drops in, and because she jerked every time she emphasized a word, she ended up with saline solution all over her face.

Me: “Has Obama said that he never goes to church? I don’t remember ever hearing him say that…”

Dot: “Well, I don’t think that he’s such a bad guy or anything. Maybe he went to church before he was President, but now he’s afraid to go to church because someone might shoot him for being black.”

Once again I tried not to laugh and encouraged her to relax so that she could get some sleep tonight.

Dot: “Oh I won’t be able to sleep tonight, I just KNOW it! I won’t be able to sleep until Romney is elected President.”

Me: “You aren’t worried at all about his binder full of women?”

Dot: “Huh?”

Me: “Remember that part where he said that he believes in equal pay for women, and then he went on to say that he had his advisers go out and make him a binder full of women so that he could hire a couple of them?”

Dot: “Oh yeah, but that was pretty nice of him to make sure that they got home at night to make dinner and spend time with their children. I think that’s very thoughtful of him.”

Me: “Yep that’s pretty thoughtful all right. Okay, try to get some sleep now.”

Dot: “I will. I’ll try. But wait, Whitney…?”

Me: “Yeah?”

Dot: “Just remember that Romney’s the one that’s got a little God in him. That’s more important than binders…”

Me: “Okay, I’ll try to remember that, Dot.”

Dot: “Okay then. Goodnight.”

Me: “Goodnight.”