Update On The Store

I should be thankful, and I want to write about it here: Despite my worst fears, my parents are, up to this point, still dutifully getting up in the morning and going to "work," such as it is.  Now they go a lot later than they did when they were fully up and running, 9 or 10 instead of 8 or even 7.  And they get home a lot later.  I can't vouch for that because I usually try and stay the hell out of the house by the time they get back, but I think that instead of 5 or 6, they come home at 4, maybe 3 -- shit, maybe even 2.

My friend dropped by the place two, three weeks ago and said they were still open, but according to him, my parents were in everything-must-go mode.  That's the reason why, even though I still want to show appreciation to The Old Lady by dropping by the place, I'm afraid to do so at this point.  The last time I was there was ... gosh, was it when they were in Vegas for Memorial Day vacation and they wanted me to dump some stuff?  And gosh, I think I blogged about the last time I was there with my folks.  Frankly, I don't have the time to link to it here, but I'm also afraid of looking at the blog post entry date and thus knowing how long ago it was I was there when my folks were there.

Uncertainly over The Store's final demise, along with trying to establish a cover of working when I'm really not, us fighting, and me not having time because I did work, all of that has contributed to me not seeing The Store for a long time.  And it thus makes it harder to just stop by because I don't know in what condition it is in now.  Is it open?  How empty are the shelves?  Are they throwing shit away?  Are they intent on selling the place?  And when I say condition I don't just mean what they used to sell; a storm blew through about a month ago, and My Father showed me pictures of the water coming through the roof into The Store itself.  Some parts of the aisles really got damaged by the rain getting in.  I hope it's better now.  But maybe my folks don't care any more?

Complicating all of this are signs, even more signs I guess, that The Store's days truly are numbered.  I've been saying that for almost a year -- has it been almost a year since My Father told me about The Store?  Damn -- but my folks haven't been aggressively bringing home stuff like they have the past couple days or so.  Today, for example, I woke and saw in the newly remodeled kitchen about half a dozen milk crates.  They had to have come from The Store.  And today they brought home a bunch of plastic food containers as well as the microwave they took from home because they were afraid Grandmother would break it.  Maybe they haven't been using it in some time, but it's kind of hard to cook food without a microwave at The Store.  Either they are using that very old hot plate that's still there, deciding to bring food they don't need to heat up ... or they don't need to eat at The Store anymore because they're not going to go to The Store anymore.

Regardless, I'm afraid I still don't think I'll be visiting her any time soon.  My weakness.