The Farce called Christmas

First off . . . I developed a cold last weekend. I do this every winter. It always starts in my nose and moves to my chest. I hack and hork and wheeze and sound terrible. I know I'm getting better when I lose my voice. I generally feel a bit tired, but that could be because I generally cough more at night than during the day.

I coughed all night before we were suppose to drive to the Old Folk's house. I usually like to hit the road at 5am so that we make it to the Old Folks house before dark. This year, I reset my alarm and didn't even drag my sorry monkey butt out of bed until 8am.

When we finally made it to the Old Folk's house, I learned that they had forgotten we were coming. Somewhere along the drive, my voice gave out. This is a problem, because the Old Woman is a touch hard of hearing and doesn't like to wear a hearing aid. I would whisper/shout at her and she'd either wave at me and say that she couldn't hear me or she would make out one word and fill in the rest. The Phenom was called upon, rather unwillingly, to be my interpreter. Most of what we talked about wasn't very important . . . until the Old Woman thought I'd told her to go to hell. The Phenom was in another room and the Old Woman was revving herself up to a full blown mad over it . . . I had to run get the Phenom and get everything straightened out fast.

The other oddity of the weekend was that the Old Woman has gone soft in her old age. When I was a young monkey, if I complained of feeling poorly, she'd tell me to mop a floor or clean out a closet. Her logic was that if you feel rotten, you might as well do something that you hate. Now that she's gone soft . . . she kept harassing me about not being in bed because of my cold. She got most frustrated with me because I had a couple of goodies I wanted to make and pack up for some of the locals.

But, the weirdest by far was the thing she made us take. Every time we visit the Old People, the Old Woman finds some thing that she doesn't need or want anymore and insists we take it. That's how I got a pressure cooker and my convection oven and countless other things in my home. This time, the Old Woman delicately inquired of the Phenom if perhaps, just maybe, do we possibly like to take a "drink" once in a while? (You should know that the Old Woman is very decidedly against taking a drink once in a while and generally frowns on any reference to having had a drink.) The Phenom said that, why yes, every once in a while we do take a small drink. (And, this folks is why the Phenom is an actor and I'm not.) So, the Old Woman comes bustling into our room, opens a drawer, pulls out something wrapped in a towel and a plain paper bag, and out she pulls a bottle of black jack. She said she's had the bottle in the house since her sister died some 15 years ago and she just is tired of the temptation of having it around. But, as she handed it over to me, she was really quite solicitous about making sure I understood that she didn't think we were alcoholics . . . but she would appreciate it if we would take the bottle from her home. (SCORE!)

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around her saying that she's had a bottle of whiskey in her home for 15 years and sees it as a temptation? Nerves of steel! I opened the bottle as soon as she was in bed that night. In fact, I'm having a small drink as I write this. Booze! From the Old Woman! Booze! You just don't know how weird this is for me. Next thing we know, she'll figure out that I've had sex a time or two.

So, between my sneaking sips of black jack, our communication issues, and the fact that none of the Old Folk's biological children saw fit to visit her over the holiday . . . we were a merry lot. She threw us out after lunch christmas day because she decided that I needed to drive all the way home so I could rest. She also has this crazy notion that I'm going to see a doctor about this cold.

But, I'd rather have a farce christmas with the Old Folks than none at all. Sadly, given they are 90 and 87, I see the year coming that there will be no holiday at all with them.