Today was “Sue Day” for Ms. Irma. She is the only client that I go to her house beforehand to pick up her grocery list, her coupons, her plastic bags to recycle and her debit card. I usually have to call her at some point from the store because I have gotten so accustom to buying her certain things every week and she usually leaves something off the list. She usually forgets the bananas or tomatoes! I try to remember to check her list before I leave her house but I don’t always catch it. Today it was the tomatoes. No big deal. She always writes her pin number for her debit card at the bottom of her grocery list. At the checkout counter the machine asked me to re-enter the pin. I thought maybe I had entered it incorrectly. After trying it again the cashier told me she would run it as credit. When I got back to Ms. Irma’s house I asked her if she knew what Dyslexia is. She said, “I’ve heard of it”. ”I don’t give a damn???” I laughed and she said, “Well, it means something like that”. I asked her what her pin number was and from here I am sure you can guess the rest of the story. She had reversed two of the numbers.
Mrs. C. called me once again and told the voice mail to deliver her groceries at 11:55 am that day. I had a busy day and wasn’t able to get them to her until after 3:00 pm. I apologized when I got there and told her I was sorry I couldn’t bring them at the time she wanted. She said she figured that out when I hadn’t gotten there by noon. I reminded her that she asked for them to be delivered at 11:55. She said, “Well yes, I can’t say twelve so I just say 11:55″. I asked her what it was she couldn’t say. She replied, “Twelve”. I then pointed out to her that she had just said the word “twelve” two times in a row! She replied with, “Well I just say it to entertain myself”.
Ms. Z got very sick and was in the hospital for a few weeks. She is better but had to go to a nursing home in order to get strong enough to go back to her house. Her daughter who lives out of state asked me to stop by and visit her mom every day and to buy her anything she wanted. Yesterday the daughter asked me to find out if there were any clothes she needed. She thought she might want a night gown. No, Ms. Z said she would just sleep in a T-shirt like she always does. I went through her clothes with her there so she knew what she had. All she could think of that she wanted was apples. After visiting with her for a while it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen any underwear in her drawers. I asked her about it and she loudly told me that she DID need UNDERPANTS because she didn’t even have any on!
What a week it has been and it isn’t over yet!
