Lost his marbles!

I never thought I would be nineteen and living with someone who has quite clearly lost their marbles. I start bluntly in this tale of unexpected days for one reason, I wish you, my reader, to have no illusions about what you are reading. This story is in no way conventional. 

I start, for the want of better prefix, right at the beginning.

I have just met my friend Simon, who by all accounts and first impressions is absolutely, positively……

…..MENTAL!

I mean no disrespect to him but he is running from tree to tree playing army with a stick and making gun noises, that sound more like someone blowing a raspberry than an MK46 sub machine that he was pretending to use. However, do not attempt here to think that I sat on the side lines and watched this idiotic display, for if you did, you would be sadly mistaken. It was not a second later that I heard the sound of this newly found friend emerging behind me and the strange gattling gun sound pierce my lips, than I heard  the words,

“ You got me I’m dead ”

At which point I should say that I was only 11, and still in short trousers,a whipper-snapper by all accounts. This became the only game of army I actually won as from then on my skills with the gun shaped stick had no affect on my smart friends. I will not deny that this was the first time I had fun in unmeasurable quantities. 

Soon I grew older and the games stopped, a little more slowly than perhaps should have done but all the same they slowly ceased in existence, and some new child came and took our place. Childish endeavours were still not uncommon and the old silent but deadly game was of the most impressive, though the teachers had a very dim view of this light hearted game. Simon was always silent, however me, well more loud and fragrant, than silent and deadly ( I leave your imagination to run away here for the rules of the game). Although we were looked upon as people that had lost their marbles, this was nothing but funny to us.

Soon it would be time to leave my games well and truly behind for they were not going to ‘cut the mustard’. We needed more crazy ideas, more crazy games and we made them!

In Simon I believed I had found the perfect mental friend, but little did I know that when I grew up someone near four times my age would replace him in stakes of mentality.

You see when I was 18 I really had to grow up and fast!

My grandmother became ill and later passed away and my grandfather also became ill, so I chose to look after him.

MISTAKE NUMBER UNO!

It became a war zone quickly, the young one trying to help the old one stay safe and if possible on his feet. Now to all this may sound as though it is an easy job, though to you I say this:

“ Come and meet my grandfather” 

With food becoming the hot topic, i.e “I don’t want any of that”, I needed to have my wits about me. For someone who rather lacked in the wit department It was a mitigated disaster. Two days after coming out of hospital, my grandfather chose not to listen to me and got an afternoon and evening back in hospital for his trouble. With a nasty cut on his head, they glued him back together (literally!) and he came home. Still no lesson learnt though!

If only he would listen to me he would have been fine. The amount of time I say this I think I am going to go mad.

I however was not alone, I had two seasoned pros at my disposal. Joyce and Brian.

The saviours of my sanity. They had for many years seen and played witness to my grandfathers growing insanity, and it seemed that they could give me valuable pointers in which way to go and what to expect, however I could still surprise them with the things that appeared from his mouth. The words of wisdom, as my grandfather had said. The words of age, and 92% of them were absolute….

codswallop!

The comments slowly grew from me being described in the morning as the ‘wild man of Borneo’ (he did have a point), to ‘a mass murderer on the run’ (eh?). Food resurfaced its ugly head when my cabbage became the source of amusement. There is no double entandre here, I really do mean a cabbage! I usually put on a dash of black pepper to taste as most people do, but as I walk in with the black pepper cabbage I hear one voice from the corner,

“ You have not washed that cabbage properly it is dirty, I hope mine has no bugs on it like that”   

Now I know there is a collective tut has raised its head here as it would be very simple to buy white pepper and it not be noticed, but if I refer you to the above mention lack of wit you shall understand that sometimes I buy without thinking of such consequences. 

I however asked for a small guidance from the next door neighbours Joyce and her teenage/ 75 year old husband Brian, who in some occasions is about as much use as a chocolate fire guard. You see he is deaf in one side, I SAID HE’S DEAF IN ONE SIDE. ( I apologise for that but I could not resist.) Joyce is the brainy one, she went to secretarial school (wooooooo!) so she is super organised. Calendars depicting everything you could ever wish to know, and some things you could well do without knowing. That is what she specialises in, things you wish you did not know, like how to enquire about another hospital appointment because your grandfather can not take enough of a good diet, so he develops Diverticular disease. Don’t worry its not life threatening but I am not going to explain it to you, as I don’t even truly understand it myself and I have read the leaflet. However my grandfather states that the doctor said he was fine and they give out those leaflets saying that you have a certain disease, to everyone.

Why of course they do!

Yes that is right the NHS has nothing better to do than arrange more appointments for an illness that actually, you don’t have!

The inner workings of his mind begin to puzzle.

You see earlier I said that Brian was about as much use as a chocolate fire guard, which considering that if you were hungry, you could eat it, is pretty useful. The only thing about Brian is he is like satellite TV, whilst having a conversation with Joyce, Brian will pitch in at least five minutes too late. Answering the beginning of your conversation whilst you finish it with the other person. The slight delay is a little strange at first, another comparison is all the repeats that you get whilst listening to Brian just like satellite TV. Although with Brian it is different, he may have lost a good portion of his marbles, but with a wife that keeps him check the marbles he has found are still growing strong, even though he is slowly turning into the bionic man, after he had a hip replacement. It has been said that he will be turned in for scrap when he passes. So in my residence the marbles that have been lost have been replaced by complaints and arguments and in the house next door, we have the quoted ‘oldest geriatric teenager in captivity’.

Side splitting funny and with a dog that does a good impression of a squirrel to boot.

My grandfather is now 80 and Brian his best friend 75 but as I asked my grandfather to recite Brian’s age he told that me he was 35!

Brian wishes!

This is nothing out of the ordinary though for at one point instead of his 18 year old grandson looking after him at home, he had told the nurses before he left the hospital, that his 13 year old nephew was going to be looking after him!

That put the panic buttons and high alert I can tell you. We later had a lengthy discussion over just what relation his wife was to me, she could not answer, so I attempted to explain in the simplest of terms myself.

“ If you are my grandfather then your wife was my grandmother”

“ No she was your aunty” he replied as he put across that he knew everything.

“ Grandad and grandma go together , you are the grandad so violet your wife was my grandmother” with almost one hour sailed by, we got there in the end.

I was advised not to bother the next time and just let it ride, but for me advice has never been a strong point and least of all in  this situation. After rock salting the drive the way my father had told me to do it, my grandfather seemed less than happy and spurted the most stupid comment any person can ever say:

“ If your father told you to jump of a cliff would you do it?”

I stood thinking for I have never had an answer to that question, for I wondered which person had invented such a saying, and if he or she knew what damage it would cause, for you see that little sentence is one of the best way to close and win an argument.

However when your grandfather rears up to you with his fists in the air and offers you a fight there is no argument winner just one casualty, not for the fact that he has punched me but for the fact that I am double over laughing and finding it increasingly difficult to breath. For this argument however you come to the table ill prepared and un advised in OAP hand to hand combat. My grandfather does not use a walking stick, which is to my advantage, for a walking stick is a good weapon of choice for those with it at their disposal. My grandfather is very unstable on his feet and he knows it, a small gust of breath from and me and ding, ding, ding K.O!

However here I feel as though I have let someone escape without so much as funny story.

Joyce: the bright secretary with an odd trick up the sleeve that might just make your hair curl! 

As they say it is always the quiet ones. The one big flaw that she makes is…..

UNDER ESTIMATION!

With tales of company feuds, scared salesmen and all out war with a dodgy police car driver, you begin to see why we all stay quiet and do exactly what is called of us. You still will not see what her down fall is however, well here is the secret, like most people that have been certified as ‘over the hill’ she is easy to bamboozle! I will say something witty and she is shocked (secretly I am too, me… something witty, never!) stunned to a dumb silence. However if ever you should come across this kind hearted individual, be aware all is not as it seems and if you are one for bragging, simply don’t bother just walk away. (Or rather run as fast as your legs can take you!)

Yes we all have a ‘dark side’, a way of teaching one a lesson and it is something all of the old age pensioners have in abundance.  The patience of saints in order to catch the youngs ones out. Joyce has the one skill of reciting words that have ceased to exist in normal everyday language, and will almost certainly not make a come back. As I sit in the mastermind style environment, being quizzed from a wizened pro, I begin to realise I am in deeper than I should be. However  readers this is not the worst, oh no, not by a long shot. As a 19 year old, I have little knowledge of TV from before I was born. You see it is scientifically impossible to watch TV before you are born, and even then it is impossible to remember until you have enough brain cells to do so, so still even now I have a real task in remembering TV programmes. However this secretarial genius expects me to know where an actress came from, in programmes set almost fifty years ago. I will admit that I have seen Carry on films down the ages, however as a teenager and more ‘in to’ action, gore, and more besides, I am at a loss to remember the characters in such films as Carry on. However this does not end here, it gets harder, I am not only told that this actress now staring in the ITV1 show Commander, was in the Carry on films, I am also told she does not look the same. I ask of you, the reading jury, to decide if you believe I would know this. I am sure that a collective no has rung out, and if you said that, you would be correct!

I had no idea! Not a clue.

Well, we all try, as I attempt to look as if think intelligently, I end by racing back, as if a rocket was up the proverbial and revert to my grandfather once more. 

I must say that through all his bravado and male chauvinist act, he is kind and thoughtful, in a scrooge, rob you, grinch kind of way. In fact scrooge is more than likely sat in his chair now thinking that he is an angel compared to this man. However through the faults, the madness, oh the utter madness we love him…….

…… conditionally!

P.s and Joyce and Brian will continue to baffle me, and amaze me in what they expect me to know. I sign of with fond fairness for the two, well, barmy next door neighbours. I bid to all, my dues, farewell and goodnight.

old age = fun!

 In old age there are rules and ways in which you know that you are old, if like my grandfather you fit them, then I am sorry to say you are older, I was told this as a kid and  shall say it now to my grand father:

ACT YOUR AGE AND NOT YOUR SHOE SIZE.

Now the rules.

1) The only way you will be ‘down with the kids’ is if you slip in the ice.

2) You find your mouth making promises your body can’t keep.

3) You call the stereo system, the ‘wireless’.

4) More and more you hear yourself say, “back in my day”.

5) You begin to expect 19 year old people to know where that old actress in a TV show is from and are surprised when they don’t.

6) You sit down to watch Hetty Wainthrop for the 15th time and you can’t remember if you have seen it or not.

7) You see something on ‘flog it’ that you threw out years ago as ‘tat’, and would you believe it its worth a pretty penny!

Your back goes out more than you do.

9) You hold a season ticket to the hospital car park.

10) Your doctor knows your own face better than you do.

11) Your friends begin to say things like “ still plodding on then I see” and “ hows the great-great-great grand kids doing”

12) Conversations with people your own age turn into duelling ailments.

13) Your medical records are longer than the bible.

14) You still own that invite to a VIP last supper with Jesus.

15) That computer malfunction that had you heading for a new one was because you didn’t know how to work it properly.

16) You watch copious amounts of football because it is the only thing you can still do now that you could when you were a kid. 

17) All these new gadgets get your head in a spin but you can’t help but touch them ( sometimes setting off alarms in the process).

18) Your daily plans are: wake up, breakfast, sleep, lunch, sleep, bit of TV, sleep, tea, sleep, bit of TV, sleep, wake up next day.

19) You begin checking the deaths in the papers and are relieved when you don’t see your own name. 

20) Instead of being ‘down with the homeys’ you are ‘ at home with the downeys’

21) You try again and again to get the DVD to rewind. 

22) You repeat things three or four times before you are reaching for the mega phone.

23) You begin to stare blankly at anyone under 25 when they are speaking.

24) To get anything going you need 20,000 volts.

25) You can pop viagra like smarties and nothing happens.

26) Any strenuous activity needs a dephibulator standing by.

27) Any strenuous activity can be passed to the grand kids under the pretence that it is work experience.

28) Your birthday candles begin to cost more than the cake.

29) When as before your glass was half full, it now houses your dentures.

30) When you wake in the morning you check to see if all your body parts are still attached.

31) You and your repeats, the young ‘uns hate them, you can’t get enough.

32) If they are under 20, you proceed to quote the dictionary at them.

33) Inside a cupboard you know there hides a huge book of medical information and you become more clued up than a doctor on your ailments.

34) The Worthers originals come out.

35) That ‘deaf side’  you had, changes side.

36) Food becomes a hard choice, for you have no idea which choice you wish to make. Then you proceed to forget all the choices that you had in the first place. 

If more than five of these rules fit you, then you have reached the stage of no return. You are old, now I have one last piece of advice, take a leaf out of my neighbours book and my grandfathers and……………….

Grow old disgracefully! 

TO ALL MY SUBJECTS.

If you find yourself in this short tale, or if you fit the rules, please do not be offended, I am simply pointing out the facts, 

1) I live in a mad house

2) I live next door to mad house

3) I love the mad house

Lets face it, if we did not have the mad pensioner, then what would we have? No laughs, no jokes and no funny tales.

However if I mention you by name here, it is for one reason, you are ‘over the hill’ and you could not have done any worse for it.

You not only expect to much from the young prodigies, but almost certainly too much from yourself!

Take it easy, you deserve it!

P.s stop testing us kids, we are daft and that is how we shall stay!

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