God, my parents are old (and foreign. TLDR)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

Teehee, I know what you mean when you say, “what to picture.” They are little old Indian folk. Who again, are successful professionals, so I’m not sure why they find life so confusing . . .

In all fairness, my dad is a little “off” (sort of eccentric genius type; he really is one of the smartest people I know) and my mom is pretty okay with social interactions, she’s just super cheap with tipping and HORRIBLE with technology. Actually, my dad is pretty good with technology, blind-as-a-batness aside. He actually trusts the GPS more than street signs or his two eyes. Which means that sometimes he ends up following every single little direction that it gives (you know how occasionally in a city it’ll tell you to take a left that’s not there, and once you miss this “left,” will continue to instruct you to turn around or take six more left turns in order to get back on your first nonexistent left turn, while all the time you can see the signs for the interstate you’re heading to? He’ll take the 80 turns to nowhere and get frustrated rather than following the signs. Because Satellites and Computers Can’t Be Wrong.)

Oh, and also he helped me put the hook back up, which was easier than doing it myself.

So, is irrational fear of crime an old person thing or an immigrant thing or both? My dad insisted on driving into Lot Of Confusion because, “it was safer than parking on the street.” Ah yes, dad, because everyone and their brother is just dying to break into your low-end Beamer in the middle of Charleston in broad daylight. Most of the people walking by could have probably bought his car with their pocket change (and he ended up leaving the window open by accident anyways, discovered when we returned to the car).
Later we were thinking of buying some furniture, but we considered the delivery/set up charge to be too much based on the cost of the furniture. I mentioned that I could probably, in this economy, find some guys with a truck on Craigslist to do it for fifty bucks. My dad then launched into the, “how do you not know they’re murderers and rapists” tirade. Which is a fair point, but again, even if they had secret murderous desires and weren’t just some guys wanting to make some cash, if I had my roommate and a male friend over when they delivered the stuff, I doubt they’d hog-tie all of us in broad daylight and proceed to rape the hell out of us. My dad made me promise not to go this route. And it was just an offhand comment.

Well, now they’re gone, and I miss them, but it is nice to have some breathing room.

42

This reminds me of my mother about 15 years ago, before cell phones were common. She and my father had come to Colorado to visit me, and I’d just gotten a cell phone. I had to work one day, and they decided to do some sight-seeing and shopping. I gave them my cell phone and told them to call me around noon and I’d come have lunch with them. I cautioned them, however, to turn it off when they weren’t using it, as it was in the early days of cell phone technology and it was an analog phone with a battery life of approximately 7 minutes.

My mother called and I was in a meeting, so she left a voice mail. I was supposed to call her back. I did, but it went right to voice mail, as she’d dutifully turned the phone off. I went back to my meeting, she called again. Rinse and repeat about 4 times, each time her message got more and more frantic - “WHY AREN’T YOU CALLING ME BACK!?!?”

When I finally got out of the meeting I did manage to pick up the phone when she called, and she was suitably embarrassed when I told her the phone won’t ring when it’s turned off. I don’t really think this was an old-age thing, though, but more of a total misunderstanding of cell phone technology as it was the very first cell phone she’d ever used.

Old age is a mindset; my parents are both in their mid-70s and are pretty on top of things (the above anecdote aside). My mother not only uses a cell phone now, but can text and check her voice mail and all that. She was having trouble with the virus protection on her computer a few weeks ago, and I sent her an email telling her “Remove Avast from your computer and install Microsoft Security Essentials from this link” and she did it without one question. In fact, my big issue with my mother is that she’s still a party girl and would love to get together and have a big family dinner and drink wine and hang out about 3 times a week, and I just can’t socialize that much.

Dad’s the same, though not as technologically adept (though he does have and use a cell phone.) He has trouble hearing, but aside from that is on top of things. His body is decaying but his mind is fine, which is actually heartbreaking. He’s still the same guy in there but tends to be grumpy and tired a lot from his multiple ailments, most of which are physical problems from spending his whole life doing construction.

43

Might not work Whisp, my mum turns hers down to the “what?” setting.

44

Groan.

45

I’m taking notes. I will be 60 in not too many years and am really looking forward to embarrassing my children further. It was easy during their teen years but age has made them more resistant. They’ve even adapted some of the same traits that used to shame them so I can’t use those anymore. Payback will be sweet.

46

My grandmother had one of those buttons. We got to know the emergency responders really well, as she mostly used it to try and change channels on the TV.

47

My mother was so happy this weekend, because I used Google to give her ammo to trounce the conspiracy-theory-obsessed dipshit in her bible study group. I’m hoping she’ll use it for herself in the future. She’s pretty together, but has managed to avoid computers most of her life and is unwilling to start. She does a little email at least, and knows to mock my dad’s friends who send them political spam forwards.

48

I was visiting my grandmother once, who was extremely deaf. I noticed a pile of hearing aid batteries sitting on a table. I asked why she had them sitting there.

“I’ve used them, dear,” she replied.

“Do you want me to throw them out?”

“Oh, no, dear. There’s still some good in them.”

Further discussion revealed that if it was somebody she didn’t really want to hear, she would put a used battery in her hearing aid, because she didn’t want to waste a good battery on someone she didn’t find interesting. :smack:

If you actually saw her putting a fresh, straight-out-of-the-packet battery in her hearing aid when you arrived at her house, it meant that you were one of the Chosen Few that she actually wanted to listen to. :smiley:

(Later, she took to using the used batteries as ballast for two plants she had on a balance scale that she used as a plant holder.)

49

My sister just had the pleasure of our mother’s company for the Indy race in Kentucky this past weekend. Note: Mom is an accomplished race fan, so that wasn’t the issue. She likes racing, she likes to attend races with us, and she understands the sport. What’s not to understand about two dozen cars chasing each other around in a circle, right? :smiley:

My sister called for the Monday Morning Mom report: Same question, asked and answered seven times. Within an hour.

What is it about people who reach 60 and retaining information in their short term memory? Do we lose short-term capacity as we age or something? I swear. to. god. that woman cannot remember anything you told her five minutes ago. My sister said she was so frustrated by the third time, she decided to entertain herself by keeping count of how many times she’d answered the same goddamn question.

It’s always stupid questions too, like, “Which way is the ladies’ room?” Mom, did you look for the sign? “No. It was easier to just ask you.”

My parents never ever succeed in reading posted signs. We will walk up to a new and unfamiliar place. I will hang back and read all the signs to figure out where I’m supposed to go or what I’m supposed to do. Like some restaurants want you to wait to be seated, some want you to seat yourselves but a waitron is coming, in others you walk up to a counter and place your order. Do you stay and wait or will they bring it to you? Often, restaurants can be confusing and signage is usually insufficient. Even if there is clear and obvious and sufficient signage, my parents won’t read a thing. They will look to me and ask me what we should do. “I don’t know yet. Let me read this big-ass sign right in front of us. Maybe that will tell us.”

Shit like that makes me wonder how they ever managed to get dressed all by themselves in the morning, even once.

We never leave messages for mom because she doesn’t know how to get them off her cell phone. We don’t send her emails because she always wants to print them, can’t figure out how to reply, and can’t figure out how to open attachments. All she wants are pictures anyway. I will print off digital pix and mail them to her.

Forget texting. I still cannot find a coherent, intelligent reason to explain to my dad why texting is better than phone/voice mail. He cannot comprehend the convenience factor and frankly, he’s got a solid argument. All I really need now is to be the techie for when my parents finally do discover texting. :: face palm ::

And she used to help me make fun of her parents because the VCR was always blinking “12:00.” I’d come home from college, re-set the VCR clock, and then do it again at the end of the next term. At least my mom gets how to use it (she still has one and still uses it) and she also knows how to use her DVD player.

Maybe there comes a point in time where you get sick of trying to learn new things and your brain just shuts down whenever you encounter an unfamiliar setting or scene or situation. A “Fuck it, I’m too old for this shit” mentality seems to take over.

50

Christ on a cracker, I knew the parents were Indian as soon as I read the OP. Especially the bits about tipping and the bits about how everyone else’s english sucked. And the comments about getting your car robbed.

Sometimes I want to tell my dad - I’m thirty-four. And we have never ever been close. So everytime you criticize one of my life decisions it drives us further apart, whether it is something to do with my car or something to do with my SO.

My parents also have/had (my mom is dead now) the problem with reading signs. They just blow right by them and it makes me CRAZY.

51

My mom is 86. I’m 53, and moved back in with her a few years ago as she really needs a lot of help these days. I try to avoid cooking in front of her, because she will swivel around in her chair (she rarely leaves the kitchen) and critique what spoon I am using, the height of the flame on the stove, the size bowl I am using to mix things in. The words I hate to hear from her mouth are “You need to learn how to…” followed by either something I’ve been doing since I married and moved away at age 22, or some little bizarre ritual way she has of doing something or operating some piece of equipment.

She has ZipLoc bags for everything…her stamps and return address labels are in one, her little sheets of paper with her monthly bills lists are in another, the coupons are in one, twist ties, all the labels from every prescription she’s ever filled, greeting cards in another. The kitchen table is a huge slidey pile of papers, mail, ZipLocs…I eat dinner up here in front of the computer becasue there is no room to sit. When she was in the nursing home, we sorted and tossed and organized…it lasted three days. When my sister was here, we sorted and tossed and organized and filed and made room on her desk in the sewing room…it lasted three days.

Now she’s going through piles of old mail…from two years ago. I came home from work and she had clipped out an article from AARP about how a stimulus check would be direct deposited for every Social Security recipient in June, and she wanted me to check her bank statement to see why it hadn’t shown up yet. I asked her what year the AARP magazine was from. She rolled her eyes at herself and laughed…she never thought to check the year,even though she was purposely going through old piles.

She hates the phone menus at the bank and everywhere else…don’t we all? But she can’t push the buttons fast enough, or hard enough, and she keeps getting disconnected and getting that message, “If you’d like to make a call…” which she then imitates in this snarky little voice that I find hysterically funny. But she still doesn’t get that it’s her fault.

52

I am a couple months shy of 60 and I’m afraid the short term memory goes and you don’t even realize it. I’ve opened my mouth to ask my daughter a question and realized I’d already asked it, and not that long ago, or seen that look on her face that I remembered having on my face when I talked to my mother (who died at 43). So yeah, it happens. I can use my phone, I text, I can use the Tivo and DVD player, I email, but I know it’s fading!

53

God this is rich. Thread winner.

54

Yes.

And yes.
About half a year ago, my mother told me “I think your grandmother is finally old”. “When was the last time you heard her say ‘the old woman didn’t want to die because every day she learned a new thing’?” “…hm… I don’t think I’ve heard her say that at all, this visit.” “Then yes, she has finally gone and gotten old.”