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3:31 p.m. - 2005-12-08 Giving Glares and MutteringWell, it is now week 2 of living in geriatric central and what I knew would happen has finally happened, however, I didn�t think it would happen this fast. I am accused of �glaring and muttering� In my last post, I think I mentioned that my Mother In Law prattles on and on about the various people who go out of their way to slight her. As a matter of fact, she has been slighted by everyone she has ever known and she has a heart attack every day. She talks behind everyone�s back. It doesn�t matter how good you are to her, she will make up some phony charge of how you slighted her. For instance, a niece who is especially good to her was going through a rather busy patch in her life and went a few weeks without calling. My MIL was afraid that she wasn�t calling because the niece was mad at her. Not being able to stand the fact that she may have slighted someone herself, she had to make up some story to make it the nieces fault for the non existent slight to make it right in her own mind. She then needs to tell this story over and over and over again to whomever will listen�.the story about how some so and so or who de who did her dirty, that she starts to believe it. She then starts to believe it completely in her own mind. I would like to say this is coming from senility folks, but the truth is, she has always been this way. It is getting worse with age and the stories now take a bizarre twist, becoming yarns that no one except other befuddled old ladies with nothing better to do but whine would believe. Her room is off of our kitchen which I need to use in the morning to pack lunch, feed the cat, etc. I try to do this without the light on and as quietly as possible, though I do whisper sweet nothings to the cat now and then. My MIL is completely deaf without her hearing aids and she always appears to be sleeping while this is going on. Yesterday, she broke down crying to Mike that in the morning while I am in the kitchen, I come into her room and glare at her while I mutter nasty things under my breath. Then the whole time I am getting ready, I continue to glare and mutter. My husband of course knows this is not true and told her so. I do not glare and mutter, even though she hoards used napkins and keeps them in her room. We have to be on constant lookout for used napkin stashing and even found a couple stuffed in Christmas boxes that are sitting in the dining room. I do not glare and mutter, even though when opening up the cabinet below her bathroom sink, a hoard of heavily used Kleenexes came tumbling out. I do not glare and mutter, even though she puts open containers of various liquids and unwrapped pieces of food in my refrigerator and I didn�t even mutter once when I found a � of a peeled banana in my fruit bowl. I do not glare and mutter when I offer to make her lunch, she refuses then waits another 10 minutes until I am embroiled in some arduous task like raking leaves or hanging Christmas lights and then cries, �If ah don�t have something to eat now, I�m going to vomit.� I do not glare or even think of muttering when I find open packages of potato chips under her bed. I have been gracious and kind and will continue to be so. Actually, this is not making me mad. I am trying to convince myself that she is going senile, however, she doesn�t act any more senile than she did at the age of 60 when I met her�she has always been befuddled and I guess her older age is making her more befuddled. She spends so much time trying to figure out how she was wronged and working on making it look like someone else that is doing her dirty that her befuddled mind is completely taken up with the tangled web she weaves. Theses webs get more and more tangled the older she gets and she forgets where she has left the ends. As she desperately tries to figure out whom she told what to, the story gets more and more ridiculous. I won�t drum up bad karma for myself by wishing her gone, but Lord, if you are going to take her anyway, please let it be soon. God Bless those of you who make it their life�s work to help these people, and God, please bless me by not ever letting me become one. P. I. Yarnsmith
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