So I walk around to find her, but she wasn't in her room nor downstairs. Shit. Now, she could be with her friend and he could have been taking her to the doctor's. Grandmother is now not specific about stuff like that, and it pisses me off that I planned on taking her to the point of moving my schedule around for her, but as long as she goes to the doctor's I'm OK. The other thing that could be happening is, well, she just blew it off. Or maybe she forgot. Either way, she'd be skipping what would be her third appointment with the physician, and that's not good at all.
So I wait. I tool around on my laptop, I listen to the Wild game on the radio, I think about doing the laundry for her (my clothes don't smell right, so I want to know if she's doing anything wrong by doing it myself this one time) and I masturbate to while away the anxiety. One o'clock becomes 1:30 which becomes 2; I give myself till about 2:10 to see if she comes home, then I call the clinic. If she reports there, great. If not, I ask for a delay -- or a cancellation, depending on the circumstances.
I'm downstairs about to put my clothes into the washer when I hear the door open. It's about ten after 2. I race upstairs to tell that bitch she needs to go to the doctor's. "You're going to the doctor's?" she stupidly asks. "NO, YOU'RE GOING TO THE DOCTOR'S -- NOW!!!" I reply. And she responds with her typical, sing-songy, "OK. ..." (Father doesn' t know he says "OK" exactly like Grandmother -- and they're both quite obnoxious.) I change and get the car out of the garage while she pees. Later I would see that she forgot to turn off the bathroom light when we left. Idiot; more wasted energy.
Now in retrospect I understand her lack of urgency; after all, she thinks she's fine. What turned out to be a case where I believe she didn't get her shit together turned into an afternoon of tension spurred mostly by my actions.
First of all, as I was sitting in my idled car, I called to the clinic and apologized profusely because, and I think I emphasized this, Grandmother was late. After the nurse checked, she said it was OK to be 10-5 minutes late, which is beyond the now 10-5 minutes we were already late.
Then we head off to the clinic, a place I had been to once or twice before, but because it was so close I thought one quick look-up online would give me the only thing I need: a street to turn into. So I get there and find the street and quickly jerk the car from the left lane to the right turn lane. And that's where I hit not the clinic but the marketplace, a shopping district designed to look like a condominium. I've been here a couple times before to eat at the Smashburger (hmmm ... Smashburger), but I don't remember coming here to drop off my Grandmother. This is where her clinic is?
At an intersection in this area, Grandmother pointed to the left, as if to turn that way. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt; after all, she's been her way more times than I have. All that did was take me across the front of the Wal-Mart and towards a dead end. My Grandmother's a blinding idiot now, and I never should have listened to her. I turn around towards that intersection again. The only option I didn't explore was straight ahead, and again, Grandmother she'd be helpful by pointing straight ahead. Grandmother, do you know where the fuck you're going? What was that pointing to the left for then? Anyway, that's when I saw the clinic. It looked familiar; getting there through this shopping district definitely was not.
So I drop Grandmother off at the front, park mere feet away, then come in to help her check in. I was waiting to, yes, profusely apologize on Grandmother's behalf, but when I told the receptionist she was there for her two o'clock, she told me some really shitty news: We were at the wrong clinic. Fuck. I made that goddamn mistake.
The receptionist called over to the other clinic, which was about five miles away. She said that we could still see him, but we had to go over there. Now, usually in cases like this, I would rather just go home and hide in a shell for the whole day in shame. But with the work they had done, I felt like I was being pushed to doing it. Plus, this would have been the third time my Grandmother was scheduled to see her PCP and failed to. And there was a flu shot she had to take. I imagined her getting sick because she didn't get her shot this autumn. So I just went along with it.
That's when Grandmother really started getting on my fucking nerves. Another receptionist started drawing what turned out to be a fairly elaborate and messy map of directions to get from the clinic we were at now to the other one, and Grandmother responded with what I can only describe as lazy wonder: She said "Whaaaaaaaaa!" as the other receptionist retraced her map and went back to label parts of it she thought she could skip over. Then, my Grandmother started muttering, "We should cancel," which soon became just, "Cancel," while she was drawing the map and talking to me. I hate when Grandmother's rude like that, talking over people who were helping us.
But that anger stemming from her nattering on and never shutting up may have played a part in my overreaction. When we were about to leave she said we should cancel -- or, in her advanced age, she just muttered to no one in particular, "Cancel" -- and I touched her shoulder with the intention of slapping her across the face. I've been closing to hitting her a few times; it's a product of both the hatred I think I was born with and the violent way I was raised, both by my parents and, ironically enough, by Grandmother. Fortunately, propriety stopped me, and instead I yelled at her to leave with me.
She continued stammering out "Cancel" on the drive to the other clinic. I wasn't talking to her, yet she still kept blabbing on and on. She does that more often these days, spitting out words into the ether, even when they're not solicited nor reciprocated. But I drove on.
At this point, though, I have to admit that I was going less because I thought it was the right thing to do for Grandmother but more that I wanted to get this particular task done, to accomplish something, to ensure that I don't have to worry about this again. This was something for me to get out of the way, something to check off my to-do list. It stopped being about her when we got back in our car to go to the other clinic. It's sad, and I don't like that about me, but I have to admit the truth.
We got there about a quarter to 3. The receptionist there had an idea of who we were. And I saw that the translator that we asked to be there was still there, so I profusely apologized to her for being a full 45 minutes late. The rest of the day went well; she got her shot and had her blood drawn for other overdue tests, then her doc looked at the pain and, because Grandmother said she's feeling fine now, he let it go.
She should come back in December for a diabetes test.
Whew. Another task complete. Even if it took two fucking hours.
---
My day, and my tussling with Grandmother, weren't done yet.
Driving home she was hungry. This despite her leaving half a Vietnamese sandwich in the toaster oven. She wanted McDonald's. I was craving McDonald's too, plus they have the Monopoly going on now, so I thought, yeah, so long as she's paying, I could go for some Mickey D's.
When I turned into the parking lot (when my Grandmother wants something I want to make sure the order's right, so now drive-thru) all she wanted was a chicken sandwich -- which is always what she wants because it's the only thing she knows how to order. I wanted the large fries because it's the easiest thing with Monopoly pieces to eat.
When I got back inside and started driving off, she reached into the bag and started eating the fries. No big deal, everybody does that. Well, everybody except me. She offered me the fries; I told her no fucking way, I'm driving right now. She continued eating the fries.
When she got home, I showed her the sandwich sitting in the toaster oven. She said nothing beyond an, "Oh." Either she's getting really slow and she doesn't give a fuck, either way I hate that. But then she repeated something I thought I heard her say under her breath while getting into the house: "You eat chicken sandwich. I'll eat the fries."
I just blew up at her. "YOU CAN'T DO THAT! YOU EAT THE CHICKEN SANDWICH!! I BOUGHT IT FOR YOU!!!"
And then she said, "OK, OK, OK ..." like a little mouse. Later, I left her some of the fries and, knowing that she would just throw it away, I ate about half the chicken sandwich.
Goddamn, I hate that she changes her mind. And I hate that I get angry with her so easily, too.
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