Happy Memory with my Mom

ONLINE AND IN THE PINK

My Mom is now using my old computer and I have a new laptop that moves with me like my dog. Mama’s user name is Renfro because it was a Renfro family computer and we added her to our account like a daughter. That’s okay, isn’t it? It was my hope that she would find mental stimulation using the internet to communicate.

It started simply enough. I brought her the computer, printer, keyboard, speakers, wires, cables, microphone, mouse, etc.—a heavy car full. I had to put it on her dining room table because there was no other place and have since been working to get it off the table and set-up in her bedroom. We have had a time with this project. I got here Tuesday night and I've nearly killed my mother with activity. This is Friday, and in spite of my efforts to do something for her, she has ended up doing way too much. She is now taking a nap.

First, we got an antique desk out of her basement and thoroughly cleaned it. I picked it up and muscled it around to the front porch—almost to the door—before we found termites. Then, I wrestled it into the trunk of my car and drove it back around to the basement where I hefted it back onto the pallet where we found it. We called pest control to check the house for termites and went and bought a computer table at K-Mart.

Of course the table was not assembled, and just removing it still in the box from my trunk proved impossible. So, we opened it and moved it by pieces into the house. Then, we started putting it together from the incredibly simple eight pages of instructions. (That was Wednesday afternoon.) She kept working while I went out to Bruno's and bought food and cooked supper. After that, we continued screwing things together and reading instructions which provided mental stimulation of the rarest kind.

And then, we found some of the parts (flat washers and spring washers) were missing and it looked like a third of the screw holes hadn't been drilled. With pieces and parts littered all around her house, we crashed and went to bed.

We woke up raring to go but noticed a leak in the kitchen sink with water running out of the cabinet (slowly) onto the kitchen floor. We cut off the water, called a plumber, and got back to work on the computer desk and put together as much as we could without buying parts.

Then, since my Mom was stuck waiting for the plumber, she wanted me to take care of another chore: my Dad's watch from Christmas didn't fit and he needed to go exchange it. He's on oxygen, so we have to move slowly and things take longer. And, he wanted to pick up my Aunt Clara so she could go and buy a watch with us. She was thrilled; and after we got his watch at Wal-Mart, they wanted to get some lunch—Red Lobster lunch because my Dad had been watching some savory advertisements on TV.

At Red Lobster, we had a smilingly patient and spunky waiter who moved us to a better table right off. His only fault was that he took our order too fast. As my Dad was eating, he complained that he didn't remember seeing any shrimp or lobster on the menu and wondered why he had ordered catfish at a place like this. Actually, it was because I ordered blackened catfish and he said, "That sounds good. I'll have that too, only fried."  But he forgot.

He ate things he wasn't supposed to eat, like three cheese biscuits and French fries and I knew I’d be in trouble with my mom for that. Aunt Clara said the slaw was the best bowl of slaw she'd ever eaten. She cried because she was so happy we were together, so I took them with me to the car wash where I spent all the quarters I had on entertainment. The Goo Goo Car Wash had a great foaming brush! Pink foam. Everyone felt revived, including me, and I took Clara home to Monarch Estates.

When we got back, my mother had given up on the plumber and was ready to go get some bits for her never-before-used Craftsman Automatic Screwdriver. It came with instructions which showed how to use it as a drill, but we had to go to Sears to buy the drill bits.

There was no one obviously working at Sears that day except a check-out lady, so I told her what we needed. She said, “Okay, I’ll page someone." 

It was not terribly long before a young man came out of hiding and we showed him what we had and told him what we needed. He shook his head and said, “I’ll have to find someone else to help you with that. I barely know my own job.”

 The next helpful young man to come out led us to a wall of drill bits and kits and assured us that we could buy any size or shape on the rack because all the parts there fit Craftsmen automatic screwdrivers no matter what. “They're all made to work together,” he said. My mother started arguing, nicely, because it looked to us like the round bits wouldn't fit. I asked if they could be returned if they didn't work, and he assured me they could, so wanting to get back to work, we headed to check out.

The lady, quite aggravated, said, "You can't use these. You need hex bits, but I can't show you where they are because I can’t leave the register."

We could only find hex bits in expensive kits and converter sets, and when a third man came to help, he tried to convince us to buy one of those kits. We asked him to open the kit to see if the parts fit, which he did and they didn't. He opened a second expensive set and those didn't fit either. He looked for a third kit, which they were out of. Meanwhile, wandering the aisle I found some hex bits in singles! We bought a couple of sizes for less than a dollar!

Sears sold washers, but only by the box. We needed two sets of two, so we went to Lowe's on the other side of town and using their brilliant (I’m serious) diagrams found the four washers we needed to complete the project and went home. Nearing suppertime on Thursday, we learned that the termite man found no termites in the walls of the house, but the plumber never came. So, we skipped supper and attacked our project again. Already, our brain activity had increased by leaps and bounds.

While I took the dog for a walk around the block, my mother drilled holes in the desktop. When I got back and told her she had drilled into the top and not the bottom, she said, “Well, you should have come back sooner.”

 We threw our hands up, turned it over, screwed more holes and put it on right. Oh well, we would now need some wood filler.

When we had to put the shelf for the keyboard on the under side of the desktop, I lay on my back under the desk with the automatic screwdriver pointed upward and aligned the hole in the shelf support with the drilled hole in the desktop. She held the part in place for me and still lying on my back, I put in the screw. We were all set to finish until I mentioned that I was about to screw up.

That's when we lost it. We broke down into a laughing hysteria that rendered us dysfunctional for some time before we could get back to work. Then, Mama called a second plumber. Though we had been determined to get her an email address before we went to bed, we crashed and left it for this morning.

The second plumber fixed the sink while I took Daddy to the grocery and to the bank. I'm about to cook and wash dishes again. There are still printers and speakers and such to deal with, and we might be finished by Sunday. I'm feeling a little crazy right now, incompetent, addled and last but not to go unmentioned, OLD.

Mama’s got email, but no termites and no leak, so I’m taking the dog for a ride. We’re going to the Goo Goo. I’m sure after that, I’ll be back in the pink.

© Diana Renfro 2005