Going Nuts

Tap, tap tap...  I shouldn't have let it in.  Tap, tap, tap.  Tap tap tap...

It's like the story of The Telltale Heart.  That relentless tapping coming down the hallway.

I can't stand it.  It's from the elder.  Coming tapping, tapping, tapping down the hall.

To me.  There is no escaping it when the tapping comes down the hall...

The tapping of the cane lasts 10 minutes.  10 relentless minutes...  Its like Chinese Water Torture...

Its the dreaded elderly Dad coming tap, tap, tapping toward my computer room at the far end of the house.   The long endless tapping of the cane through the seemingly endless hallway.  Dreadful, like a heart beating too slowly, like a too-loud clock, like a moonbeam crepping slowly across a window.  Relentless in the approach...

And FINALLY, a forehead shows up in the doorway.  "Are you there", he asks knowing full well that I am.  "Are you going to be in there all night" and he knows I will be.  Because I prefer to be on the computer rather than sit my butt in front of the TV all day and night like he does.  He doesn't understand anything better do do than sit his butt in the chair in front of the TV.

I spend my whole cleaning house, taking care of the cats, talking to him, repairing things, talking to him, doing yardwork, talking to him, making meals, talking to him, grocery-shopping, running errands for his medications, etc, etc, etc etc, etc, etc, etc.  And he just wants me to sit and watch TV with him all day every day and can't imagine why I wouldn't.  Well, there aren't 30 hours in a day, and I have a life of my own.  Not that Dad thinks so.  What I do seems of no value to him.

Well, he's nuts!

When we disagree on facts, he is always wrong.  He can't help but be at 90.   His mind isn't working well.  And I mean the simplest of facts.  Day, date, time, game scores.  He can't see anything straight these days.

My sister says to let everything go, pretend he is right, just toss it off.  That's not me; I can't.  I don't have the "family experience" to do that.

The problem is that he isn't yet nuts enough to require an assisted-living facility.  And that's why I am going nuts...