DO you sometimes have to ensure your elderly parents attend a family event, keep a doctor’s appointment or simply come to visit? Here is the painful process step-by-step.
1. Have they remembered they’re going? No. Your inward groans begin.
2. Discussion of weather. Yes, it could rain on the way to your car at the top of their drive. And gloves would be wise. It’s mild right now but it could suddenly turn into Hoth.
3. Use of toilet suggested. Debated for much longer than it takes to have a wee, or attempt to. Suggestion rejected.
4. They appear to be taking a long time to get ready. You go upstairs and discover they haven’t started yet. They are looking at a fly in the bedroom.
5. Putting on coats. Somehow takes seven minutes. They’ve only got two arms.
6. Actually they will go to the toilet. Urge to shout ‘For f**k’s sake!’ resisted by not wanting to give your mum the excuse to pretend to be shocked as if it’s the 1950s.
7. You point out the time. It is meaningless to them since they live in a timeless void known as ‘retirement’.
8. Key-carrying responsibility discussed. Dad will lock the doors, but Mum will transport the house keys in her handbag. Which has also been confirmed to contain lip balm and tissues. Glad all that’s cleared up.
9. Unnecessary task performed, eg. washing-up. Yes, four unwashed mugs and two plates with scone crumbs on will be swarming with rats and cockroaches if left for two hours.
10. Door exited and locked. The stress thus far has taken six weeks off your life.
11. Check that door is locked. It is. Luckily the lock is designed not to randomly unlock itself.
12. Second check that door is locked. Sizewell B has fewer failsafe procedures.
13. Open bathroom window noticed. Dad goes back inside to prevent doll-sized burglar getting in. All previous door steps repeated.
14. Stopping on way to car. An urgent inspection of a flowerbed is required. Geraniums confirmed to exist. No further action necessary at this point.
15. Chat with neighbour. Sadly it appears Mrs Brown’s husband is still dead.
16. Seatbelt torture. The silver bit goes into the buckle clearly designed for that, so why does your dad appear to be fighting an octopus? Haven’t retracting seatbelts been around since the 1980s?
17. Journey begins. Request to go back and get travel sweets denied for 12-minute drive.
18. (If walking) Stop to look at something utterly uninteresting. Eg. unspectacular fallen branch, minor scaffolding project, the incredible coincidence of a neighbour having the same car as one of your relatives. You pray you will somehow never get old.
19. Realisation that one has forgotten their glasses. Yes, your mother failed to notice that everything had turned into a large fuzzy blob. You must return home. All progress is undone. You want to cry.
