Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Phone calls from Grandmas Depressia and Loopy

A few moments ago, Grandma Depressia called me and asked me if I could take her to the hospital today. I told her no, that I was busy. Then she said she would have to get my Auntie Flo to do it, but it’ll take five or six hours for her to drive here.

“Why can’t you get you get someone at the lodge to do it?”

“They asked me if there was someone else.”

“Get them to do it. It’s their job.”

These people are paid to deal with her crap. I’m not. They have a job, they can fucking do it. I need a job, and I can’t find it if she keeps dragging me back into her daily meaningless crap. I’m not doing this for them so those assholes at the lodge can be paid by my family to do nothing. That’s fucked up. It’s not like this is a public lodge, it’s a private lodge which she pays $3,500 a month to live in.

It irritates me that I’m left with this feeling of guilt after the conversation. It make s me think I just shouldn’t answer the phone when she calls me anymore. Usually it’s for something annoying.

Here’s the thing. I’ve gone with her to the hospital before, on a number of occasions, and generally speaking, she’s fine, and just whining about something that the doctors can’t do anything about, or something she’s just plain made up. She is such a hypochondriac, and what I anticipate is going to happen now is that she’s going to call my mother to complain, and I’m going to hear about it tonight from her, which is fine, frankly. It’s easier to tell her off than it is to sit in emergency for four hours with a kvetching old hag, in a room full of people with real problems. And if it turns out she really is dying this time, finally, (which she can’t be – she didn’t even sound certain she needed to go. Frankly I think she’s just bored, but if we don’t make it easy for her to waste the day there, maybe she’ll just give up.) If it really is something serious, then too bad. This is what happens when you cry wolf.

And for the LOVE of GOD our other phone line won’t stop ringing! It’s only noon, and my other grandma, “Loopy” has been ringing all day. It’s only now noon, and she’s left 24 messages. I’m thinking maybe it’s time we took her phone away. Ugh. Here’s message #25. She sounds so out of it too. Yesterday my dad showed her a picture of our cottage and she thought there was a dragon in it. I actually thought that was kind of cool.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe the lodge(makes it sound like a fun camp or some secret society) is onto your Granma's wolf-crying streak. They don't have a nurse or someone on staff? That's pretty lame. Does she have friends at the lodge?

Malice Blackheart said...

Oh, they're onto her all right. And they do have a nurse on staff, and also doctors who come once a week.

But in the event of a serious illness, they just pack 'em onto an ambulance and ship 'em off to the hospital.

Of course, if it's not an emergency, they charge you for the ambulance ride (maybe $100 - something like that), so really, my grandma's just being cheap. She wants to have her cake and complain about it too.

And yeah, she's got lots of friends there. Every time I see her, she introduces me to some weird old bore or another.

Anonymous said...

You're terrible! Weird old bore...
Maybe she needs a boyfriend?

spookygreentea said...

"She wants to have her cake and complain about it too."

Reminds me of the oft-quoted (at least amongst our brood: "Ugh, the food is terrible - and in such small portions!"