Andy Taylor | Who I am

Ok, I am not going to throw myself on the floor and cry and say naughty words and kick my feet and stomp my fists. I am not going to call the President because he doesn’t care, and this would not seem an out right emergency to him, just to me. I won’t even look up the phone number of the city council here or the aging and disability center, because I have tried to get help from these long time locals in the past.

I will act like a lady, even though at this moment I feel like the town drunk, just going into Andy Taylor’s city jail, getting ready to open the oh so familiar jail cell, to sleep my drunken stupor off, only to find a stranger lying in my bed.

I woke up from a very restless night. Tossing and turning, hearing Al’s tremors most of the night. My eyes told me they were tired and they were begging to close, but my mind would keep telling them to forget it. My mind was on an artificial caffeine high, and would not rest.

When I put my feet down on the chilly floors, I knew it was time to turn the heat on. The chill over night was to be 34, and although, I knew I could just put layers of clothes on, I convinced myself that it was not really that cold in here. Then I walked into the living room, where several souls must have died during the night, because that room was cold.

I could not see my breath, so it wasn’t too bad, so I flicked on the electric fireplace, and went to the kitchen and turned on the oven for a spell leaving the door open. You see, it is a fight of the mind each fall. When do I turn the heat on? I know that once I turned that switch from cool to heat, I have lost the war. The heat will remain on until spring, even if we do have a few warm up days ahead. The switch glues itself to the heat side, and no matter what I try, it will not go off until it sees the buds on the trees, and then it loosens it grip, and I am able to once again turn everything off until mother nature’s heat kicks in.

So, I know that my warming our home up and getting the chill out of here, can be done in about fifteen minutes time, and if the sun doesn’t warm up the air, I can leave the fireplace on, but I think that I am going to have to turn the heat on here this week.

So, after this battle of the mind game is over, I wonder in to see if Al is awake and he is. I am hoping for a better day, as yesterday he was in bed all day except for meals. He was awake and up and he felt so good, I think, that he left me a welcome gift of a total bed change. Wow! Talk about excitement! I had not even had my first cup of coffee yet, and I got to change the bed! By the way, don’t ever pray for excitement, you may get more than you bargained for!

I changed the bed and started the one load of laundry for today. I emptied his commode pot, with the one dead fly in it. Gross! Yuck! It’s alright stomach! You won’t throw up because you haven’t eaten yet. Just don’t look and get it dumped and cleaned out. There you did it, and it wasn’t so bad now was it?

I then came out here and poured my first cup of coffee and set down at the computer and something told me to check my cell for missed phone calls or text messages. Who ever or what ever told me to do this, knew that I needed to look. Thank you to who ever planted that thought, because, there was a text message waiting for me.

It said and I quote, I thought that this coming Friday was the last day for me coming to give Al his showers, but it was last Friday. I am so sorry, but I won’t be there, have a nice life.

WTF? No shower girl? I have to give my own brother a shower and see his nakedness? Where was the courtesy in all this? Why didn’t you tell me last Friday, that you knew that this coming Friday was going to be your last day? Let alone, you say you found out this morning and are not even coming today, Monday! Where was the phone call to tell me ear to ear? A text message? How rude!

I called the office while my hot coffee started to become lukewarm, and they told me they were going to check on this whole thing, that as far as she knew, everything was going to be final this week. I tell her with my nicest fakiest smile, that this is such wonderful news and I am so thankful that they have let me in on their secret, so that I can place an ad in the newspaper and try to find a replacement for a shower girl.

I get off the phone and Al looks at me and the tears begin, and he says, they think that I am getting better? I don’t feel better? You are going to give me my showers? I tried to rattle off the basic explanation of what hopefully is some error for today, but it didn’t work. Al went to his room to sulk at the thought of his sister giving him his shower and the lack of social interaction with the therapists.

I am done writing for now, as I have had my little bitch session, and hearing no phone ring, or text alert go off, and no doorbell, I guess I will go give him a shower.