One Disaster at a time please!

As of today, all disasters must take a number!

I’ll get to them in the order they occur and in my own damn time.

On the other hand, perhaps just ignoring them might be an option. In the case of sick relatives… Well, that will probably resolve itself on its own.

I know CostCo sells coffins, but do they have a family pack?

The past weeks have been eventful, and while I’m not complaining I sure could use a break.

The problem with aging and having aged parents is that with each passing day it’s ever more likely that something is going to happen where someone you care about someplace winds up in a hospital or the morgue.

In the last month I’ve learned that while I like tiled floors, cleaning blood out of grout is virtually impossible. So that scene in Scarface while memorable, is impractical with advanced forensics and DNA evidence. If you do a chainsaw murder make sure the area has nothing porous anywhere within the splatter zone. 

Not that I’m advocating bloody murders in anyway, it’s just that you’re going to get caught if you use a tile enclosure. Call that my criminal PSA for the year.

About a week after learning the lesson of grout. I was faced with the worst nightmare of anyone living a great distance from family. Death and hospitalization, not in that order… It wouldn’t make any sense to put someone who died in a hospital. What’s the point, right?

Most of my parents generation is in their 80s, many of them are single handedly keeping their local pharmacy open. With advancing age and infirmity comes the likelihood that someone is going to wake up one sunny morning dead. That’s happened in my family. Two days later another member was hospitalized. I’m waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop and taking care of the other half who’s been “off” for the better part of two months. Remember the grout? 

So the horns of dilemma are poking my bottom mercilessly. Do I stay on one coast to look after the other half, or do I head to the other coast to attend one funeral, visit another hospitalized family member and perhaps get back home only to go back to the opposite coast a month of two later.

Numerically speaking two events on the East Coast outweigh one event on the West. Excluding the deceased family member though, the numbers stack up even 1 to 1. Logic says take care of living people because the dead ones are beyond caring.

Over the last year I’ve seen way too much of hospitals, rehab clinics, and Emergency rooms. I hate them all.

So family, you’ve got a choice. Either all go to the same hospital / funeral home at the same time, OR schedule getting sick! In other words take a number and wait your turn!

Yes, yes, I realize that waking up dead is inconvenient and you’ll lose your Tee Time. But think about the rest of us having to clean up the mess. The squabbling, and infighting are awful. Outliers of the family skulking about trying to see if they can score a car or silverware. It is simply annoying and messy. The stress on the other old members of the family takes its toll too. The last thing anyone needs is one of them, already with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, getting a shove into the grave stressing out about your funeral.

So to my family members… Just stick around spend the children’s inheritance on hookers if you want.

Be polite. Be immortal, and make that 6AM Tee Time, maybe you’ll finally break 80. Given that your vision is failing, you’re all old, and no-one is going to say a word if you play someone else’s ball on the green. Just don’t wander off with another group of golfers while the rest of us are looking for the ball that you sliced into the water trap on an adjacent fairway. If it comes to it, I’d be willing to “mulligan” you right to the green if you’d just stick around.

Give it some thought.

Love you all.