Or so I thought.
Turns out, she was just saving it all up for one giant color burst; a solar flare of crazy. Apparently she still has a whole spectrum of adventures just waiting to get out. Silly me. I thought we were past all that.
Last summer, after realizing that living independently in a retirement community was no longer serving Mommie Dearest well, my siblings and I made the decision to relocate her to assisted living. We found a charming house with a small number of residents, amid lovely tranquil trees, in a quiet community. Bliss.
With fewer residents she would receive more individualized care. A single room would provide her with less space to hoard junk mail. Laundry service would mean I didn't have to add laundress to my already full resume. It seemed perfect to us.
She hates it, of course. I regularly hear about how she has only one room, is bored, and all the people she lives with are old. Nevertheless, things had been going along uneventfully. No major medical dramas. No unseemly relationships with Viagra popping geezers. No taxicab escapades to nearby bars.
(Pause here to reflect on the fact I'm referring to a nearly crippled, almost 89-year old woman.)
On Memorial Day, I was awakened at 5am by a telephone call from my mother. She said she had been watching television and had decided to go downstairs to dinner. When she went into the hallway, however, she found the lights off. She assumed that she had been left in the building alone. I explained that, actually, everyone was asleep, because it was 5 o'clock in the morning! At 7am I received a call from a nurse who said my mother was very confused and thought it was 7 in the evening. This level of confusion means that my mom has a urinary tract infection so, it being a holiday, I took her to an emergency room. Later that day she was admitted.
As I prepared to go to the hospital on Tuesday morning, I received a telephone call that, in all honesty, I couldn't have anticipated. When I answered, the voice on the other end of the line was Lynn, the wellness nurse at the assisted living facility. I knew my mother was safely in a hospital bed, complete with an alarm should she decide to get out of it alone, so I wasn't terribly concerned. After a few opening pleasantries, however, Lynn began to hem and haw, finally saying, "I don't exactly know how to discuss this with you." My mind did a quick scan of possible topics. Pregnancy? No, she's 88. STD? Possibly. Marijuana? Likely. I told her to just blurt it out.
It seems there has been a noticeable consumption of alcohol, which is kept at the facility for weekly Happy Hour, since the beginning of the year. Lynn had grown concerned that someone from the staff had a problem and was stealing it. The employee responsible for purchasing the alcohol had been reporting a significant increase in spending. They had been trying to figure out the mysterious disappearance with little success. Over time, however, the mystery began to resolve when they caught two different residents sneaking into the bar area of the facility late at night, after the staff had gone home and the resident caregiver had gone to bed, lifting entire bottles of unopened wine and liquor and taking them back to their rooms.
The mystery wasn't completely resolved, however, because although they had caught the thieves red-handed, they knew someone else had to be the ringleader. The staff felt strongly that the two thieves, both in advanced stages of dementia, had carried out their underhanded duties at the bidding of someone with greater mental acumen. Someone still able to conjure up such a plan, provide direction, and encourage their dark deeds. A mastermind. A mob boss.
A Mommie Dearest.
Turns out my mother, fancying herself some prohibition era vigilante or something, preying on the less cognitively advantaged, had convinced the two women to form an alcohol thievery ring.
I guess that's one way to relieve boredom.
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| (Source: Google Images) This isn't my mother. But I'm pretty sure this is her attitude. |
Mommie Dearest blew her own cover on Friday night when she was apparently taking her turn at the five-finger discount. The trouble is, by that time the alcohol had been moved to a staff member's office and locked up. My mother was caught opening cupboards in search of booze to lift. When confronted with the knowledge that 1) the bounty was no longer available and 2) she had been found out, Mommie Dearest became enraged.
On Memorial Day, while we sat in the hospital emergency room, staff at the assisted living facility searched my mother's room. There they found numerous bottles of red wine as well as Bailey's Irish cream. The rooms of the other thieves netted similar evidence.
At least she stole the good stuff.
My mother had kicked the empty bottles under her bed. There weren't any partially consumed bottles so, presumably, the trio finished bottles off in one sitting while having their regular 'nightcap.' The full ones were stashed in the closet, stuffed in shoes, and tucked under clothing in dresser drawers. She even stole a corkscrew. Given her serious arthritis, she couldn't have opened the bottles herself so in picking out her crew of bandits, she must have considered physical strength. She's nothing if not conniving.
While at the hospital I mentioned this turn of events to the physician who assessed my mom for symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. She doesn't appear to have them. Nor does she seem to be an alcoholic. It appears she simply stole from the bar for the thrill of it. I repeat. The thrill of it.
Her fun is over, however. In a charming little assisted living facility with Victorian era decorations and a warm, friendly staff, the bar honor system is no longer in play. The maintenance man has installed locks on all the cupboard doors to keep my mother's sticky fingers off the booze. Geepers. I feel so proud.
That whole thing about my mother's colors dimming, I'm not falling for that again. I might have been naive once, but not anymore. Those colors will be radiating in full force as long as she lives.
God help us all if she figures out how to con someone into installing a stripper pole.
