Tricked

What a day.

As soon as the nursing home staffers left with my mother, the bank officer called me. She told me that it was a tough time of it, with my mother refusing to cooperate. They left her to stew for a little while, and then said, "It's lunchtime. Come on, we'll take you to McDonald's." And thus, out the door she went with them, willingly, having forgotten what they were there for.

This evening, she was angry again, refusing to talk to anyone, but the main thing is that she's safe.

And if there was any lingering shred of doubt in my mind about whether this was the right thing to do, it was dispelled by another phone call from my mom's friend, who made time to be there this morning. While the bank people and the 24-hr care people and the nursing home people sweated around with Mom snarling at bay, he had a quick look at the basement and saw that almost all of my dad's tools were gone -- let's not put a nice face on it -- STOLEN.

Neighbors had seen the morning caregiver's boyfriend carrying heavy boxes out of the house some weeks ago. Well, now we know what was in the heavy boxes.

The friend confronted the 24-hr caregiver with this knowledge, and she called the police, saying the "retarded boy" from down the street must have done it. Oh, yes, a developmentally disabled boy WOULD jump at the chance to fence a chainsaw and hand tools in his spare time. Sure. He picked the locks of two doors without anyone noticing, AND managed to convince the boyfriend to carry the stuff out to the car and drive it to his home for him.

Well, maybe he would and could. Maybe red squirrels came in through the old chimney and carted stuff off to barter in the Barbados while they are on vacation. Maybe the tooth fairy got fed up waiting for Mom's teeth to fall out and carried off shelves of tools for spite. Maybe it was aliens from outer space.

Somebody robbed a senile old woman while her caregiver smiled and made her an egg for breakfast, or a nice sandwich for lunch.

What is reasonably comforting is that the police aren't buying the hooey.

What's greatly comforting is ... Mom is safe, if tricked into the box trap by her love of junk food.