My Family

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

I thought it had something to do with the abysmal treatment of prevosts by the Last Cap crew.

"abysmal" as in "totally just"?

[Greg]

Prevost aren't really people are they?

[Drunk Monk]

Provost lives matter

[Greg]

So, my mother. I was pretty confident in my knowledge of her and peculiarities. But Sunday proved how wrong i was in that assumption.

When my Aunt Ida passed away, my parents ended up with her TV. It is this big silver behemoth and only has a 24" screen. But it was free TV and my father could use it in the upstairs bedroom to watch the late news before he went to bed. Because of the downstairs flood the cable box was ruined and they had to get a new box. The old TV did not work with the new box. Multiple calls to Comcast were made to find out why the TV did not work with the new box. I figured it had something to do with the fact the old TV ran on coal. I figured the easiest solution would be just to get a cheap new TV.

In between my purchase of the TV and it's arrival a comcast guy came out and fixed the problem with the TV. The cable box had the wrong zone to work properly. It was set for Cupertino while the signal was coming from Saratoga. The Comcast guy reset it and the TV now worked as well as a thousand year old TV can work. The next day the new TV arrived. Since I was having a fight with my mother, I just brought the TV home. It sat in our living room for a year while I tried to figure out what to do with it.

I decided I would just swap out the old TV for the new one. Might as well. When I went up to baby sit my mother while my sister was out, I did just that. I never told my mother. But I did copy out the three steps she would need to get the TV working. Basically, hit the power button for the cable box. Hit the button for the TV because it had some weird Roku interface built in that I couldn't override. Watch TV.

For almost two months my mother did not realize there was a new TV in the house. Even when my other sister came down to baby sit and stayed in the bedroom with the new TV (That sister couldn't get the TV to work and never thought to call)

My mother realized there was a new TV yesterday when she went into that room to watch a DVD with a friend. To be clear, there has never been a DVD player in that room.  Nor will there ever be one. The DVD player is in the basement. But she went into the room without the DVD player to watch the DVD and discovered the new TV.

First, she gets Roberta to drive over and straighten out the playing of the DVD. When she has finished watching the DVD with her friend, she naturally needs to call me to confront me about buying the TV. She starts off the call by attempting to thank me for this generous gift but I have obviously been a terrible person for doing this because she can't operate the TV. 

First she complains about not being able to watch the DVD in the bedroom because of the new TV. I respond how could she watch a DVD in that room because regardless of the TV, there was no DVD player. Even if the old TV was still there, she couldn't watch the DVD. She didn't like that reasoning. 

What she wants from at this point is the number of the store where I bought the TV so she can call them and they can tell her how the new TV works. I tell her there are instructions on how to use the TV written down right there next to the remotes.

And this is where I learn a new and terrifying depth to my mother. She tells me she has never read an instruction manual in her life. She says she doesn't learn that way. I tried to use logic. I asked her what about text books in college? Aren't those the instruction manuals for the classes for the things you were learning?

It devolved from there until I just had to hang up.

How can you get through life without reading an instruction manual? And be proud of it?

[Drunk Monk]

rough.  

i imagine those traits will become even more exaggerated.  i'm experiencing some similar situations with my mom, but nothing quite of that level.  she's been stressing because she's been having a hard time balancing her checkbook.  worried about some elderly scammer, i asked how much she was off.  it was less than $20. 

my dad, being an engineer, always read instruction manuals.  

trying to use logic will only frustrate you more, greg.

[Greg]

Another edition of the Lynch Kids are jerks.

I just got off the phone with my mother. One of the neighbors is helping her get into my father's email account. I had to come up with the password. And they had the wrong account.

But all I can think is that this neighbor is thinking, "Why hasn't anyone helped this poor women with her email? Why is it up to me to help her? Shouldn't her children be doing this?"

I think my father tried for ten years to get her to use email. but it was always easier for my mother to just let my father be her secretary. He would print out her emails. She would write out by hand her responses and my father would send them back. I know my sister Roberta tried to get her to understand email to no effect after my father had the temerity to die and leave her without a secretary.

And now here we are.

[Drunk Monk]

My mom denies email completely. She has no idea what she’d use it for. Same goes for smart phones. She keeps a burner phone for emergencies and uses her minutes at the end of her pay period up chatting with friends.

[Greg]

My sister, Roberta, the saint.

Roberta was in Seattle this weekend with my mother to visit my other sister, who is recovering from surgery after they removed part of her lung.

They were due to fly back today. Except for the part where my mother fell in the hotel room and is now on her way to the hospital to see if she broke her hip. You might remember two years ago when Roberta was in Seattle and was shuttling by my mother and father to the hospital as they dealt with various ailments.

Face it, Roberta shouldn't go to Seattle.

Of course my mother blames Roberta for the accident. My mother was carrying a cup of water. She thought she might have spilt some it. When she looked down to check, she over balanced. My mother complains that if Roberta had been carrying the cup there wouldn't have been a problem.

Roberta is supposed to be home tomorrow to be with her son who is flying in from Chicago for the Thanksgiving Holiday.

[Drunk Monk]

the Lynch Kids are jerks.

Except for Roberta...the Saint.

[Greg]

Duh.

Broken hip and wrist. Surgery tomorrow.

[King Bob]

Damn. A two-fer. Rehab up there?

[Greg]

Those decisions haven't been made yet.

[Drunk Monk]

Broken hip and wrist. Surgery tomorrow.

Oh ouch.  Which wrist and hip?  Do you know the extent of the breaks?  Must be pretty bad to warrant surgery.

[Greg]

Right hip and wrist.

[Drunk Monk]

She’s right-handed