Tuesday, November 20, 2007

He's really, really out of it

If you're one of the very few people who reads this, I'm sorry it has been so long since my last update. I've been quite busy with job-searching, and it makes me want to scream. Anyway here are some of Grandpop's latest, most bizarre moments and sayings.

Whenever I'm on the computer doing job-related things Grandpop will come ask me a number of completely out-there questions, such as: What alphabet are you on now?; Who's winning?; Did they get you? and more. One day, as I'm messing with my resume he asks me what I'm doing, but upon my reply he doesn't understand because he doesn't know what a resume is. He says, "Oh so that's a pat on the back. You going swimming?"

Grandmom asks Grandpop to go get an onion. He asks, "Where's the onion tree?"

Sometimes when the phone rings he "answers" the remote control. (Even though the remote is black with pink and blue buttons, as opposed to the phone which is white, has an antenna and a screen.)

The other day he asked me, "What year is this? 10?" He really said "ten," I kid you not.

One afternoon I walk in on him sweeping some dirt onto a bank statement that he was using as a dustpan. This is because he couldn't find the dustpan, even though it was literally attached to the handle of the broom.

Today (11/19) Grandpop tried to put 2 AA batteries into an electric can-opener. I had to tell him how to do every step of the process, and it took him at least 10 minutes. He said he hadn't put any batteries into anything in 5 years. (Not true.) After a painful eternity of watching him then try to put the plastic back on again he said he didn't know where the "device" went. He then started looking up along the top edges of the walls. I finally figured out that he thought it was a smoke detector, and he was completely baffled when I told him it was a can-opener.

We were watching "Dog the Bounty Hunter" a few weeks ago and Grandpop kept asking, "Who's he? DOC? DOT? DOC? DOC? DOT?" Then after Dog and his family were chasing down the bail-jumper Grandpop asks, "Are they fishing?"

Grandpop was cold the other day and checked out the thermostat and told Grandmom that it was no wonder he was so cold, "It's 12 in here." For some reason he read 72 as 12, and actually thought it was 12 degrees F, despite the fact that it was 50-something outside anyway.

I didn't witness this but Grandmom said she saw him peeing out by the trashcan, in broad daylight. When he came back inside she was incredibly pissed off, and he said he was too far from the bathroom to wait.

When Henry, the lawn-care man, was telling Grandpop that they might need their bushes trimmed, Grandpop told Henry that (Uncle) Gus could take care of it, since he is the head of Longwood Gardens. (Gus works at Swarthmore.)

Grandmom was sitting down to do a cross-word puzzle and asked Grandpop to hand her a pencil. Instead, he handed her a beer. When she repeated that she wanted a pencil he handed her a Sharpie.

And last, but not least, one day when I was making some food he asked me what I was doing. Before I could reply he said, "Oh I see you're making a mess." To which Grandmom said to him, "George even though you can't be nice to anyone, can't you just pretend to be nice?" His response was, "I don't know how to do that."

Oh, life with Grandpop is such a joy!