Little Old Lady Humor

Because of my job, I get to enjoy getting on any plane that Delta flies as long as there is a seat available to me.  That also extends to my mother.  When I got the job, I told her I would take her on a trip.  She has been asking me where and when we are going pretty much since the day I started working.  Because the summer was so hectic, I kept putting her off.  Well, a couple of weeks ago I called and asked her if she would like to go to Las Vegas for an overnighter.  Just the two of us.  We had planned on going on November 4, but we ended up going this Tuesday because the hotel rates were about $100 cheaper than they were last week.

She has been a little excited about this trip.  She has called me almost every day to ask me if we were still going and what time I would pick her up.  Now, in her defense, she is really forgetful these days - being 86 years old will do that to you.  She probably doesn't remember calling me.  One day she called me while I was at work, and when I was able to call her back, she couldn't remember why she had called me, so she tried to remember and then came up with some reason as to why she called.  When I listened to the message she left me, she had left a very detailed message; are we still going, are we still going on the 11th, where are we staying, what time will you be picking me up.  I giggled to myself, because she had already asked me those questions.

So, yesterday was the day.  Let me explain a bit.  My mother has always been a woman who gets out and does whatever she wants to do.  She has traveled the world, including Europe and Australia.  She had her own motorhome and every year would head down to where the warmer weather was during the winter and meet up with friends - or make new ones.  Since she had heart surgery, that has changed.  She doesn't get out like she used to.  Mostly stays home and goes out very seldom.  The one thing she loves to do is to go to Wendover, Nevada and gamble on the penny slots.  She tries to go about once a month.  She usually meets up with her friend Eileen, I go with her or she has even gone by herself.  Penny slots is about the one thing she does  enjoy doing now.  So, going to Vegas was really exciting.

Here are a few of the things that happened that made me giggle:

• We got in a cab to take us to the hotel.  We started talking about her history of Vegas.  She usually traveled through - only stopping to eat and gamble for just a bit.  She started to say the only time that she stayed here was 49 years ago when she got married.  I explained to her that we had stayed in the motorhome when she took my family to Disneyland when KayeLynn relapsed.  That we stayed at the Circus Circus campground.  She slightly remembered that.  But, I then went on to remind her that her oldest daughter was over 60 years old and that it was well over 49 years ago that she got married.  I reminded her that my dad had died when they were married 49 years.  
• My mother is consistently cold.  When we got up to the room to go to bed last night, she was in her bed and said she was freezing, her legs were cold.  She then got up to go to the bathroom and said that it felt like the floor was all wet, because it was so cold.  I am used to sleeping in a cool bedroom, that room was boiling hot last night.  I never thought I would get any sleep!!
• My mother got up to go to the bathroom at least three times last night.  Each time she got up, she turned the light on between our two beds.  Do you know what it's like to be in a completely black room and then suddenly have the light next to your head shining in your face?  I won't complain though, the idea of what could have happened to her had she wandered in the dark is enough to cause me heart palpitations.
• So, she woke up this morning, bright and early.  I hear her calling out to me, "Colleen, don't you think we should get up?  It's almost 9:00."  I didn't get to sleep until after midnight.  I looked at the clock and it was 6:19.  Her watch still said 7:19 because it's on Utah time.  She made the assumption that because the time is different in Nevada that it was 8:19.  Yeah, I'm so tired right now that I can hardly keep my eyes open.
• I made the decision to check our bags on our return trip.  It was quite a lot of work to carry both of our bags and push her in a wheelchair yesterday.  So - checking the bags was much more simple.  We got up to security and for some reason, we both had to go through the second screening with TSA  - which entailed a pat down.  My mom had two pretzels left in her little bag of pretzels from the flight yesterday.  All the sudden, she realized they were gone.  She is completely sure that the TSA agent that did the pat down took her two pretzels.  I don't know what happened to them myself, but seeing her try to figure out why they would take her two little pretzels was pretty amusing.
• While on the aircraft coming home today, she realized that she had to go to the bathroom.  I told her she couldn't go now, that she had to wait until we landed - we were on our final descent.  So, by the time we got to the gate, she had to go pretty badly.  They had asked anyone that was landing in Salt Lake as a final destination to wait a bit to deplane, because we were a bit late and some people had to run for connecting flights.  She was getting a bit antsy because she had to go so badly.  There was a little bit of a break, so she tells me, "go after that young boy".  It was a woman in her 50's with a short haircut.  I almost peed myself at that one.
• On the drive home, I looked at the clock and said, "we've been gone for 24 hours".  Right after that, she started talking about forgetting to stop her papers and the neighbors are usually good about getting them for her and not leaving them in the driveway.  I told her that it should be all right since there was only one paper.  She looked at me astonished like and said that she thought we had been gone for two or three days.  I told her that we were only gone for one night - that we just had the discussion that we had been gone exactly 24 hours.  She started to laugh at herself at that one.
• And finally - the weather here in Salt Lake was much cooler than the weather in Las Vegas.  She was quite chilled and was so happy when my car heater started to warm up.  She then said that she had to go home and turn her heat up.  I told her that she hadn't turned it down.  She said, "yes I did.  I turned it down to seventy".  I started to laugh, because my heat is very seldom up to 70 degrees, to which she replied, "I usually have it on 80!!"

It was a good trip.  I'm exhausted.  She wore me out.  I lost her once in the casino and it took me about an hour to find her - looking in every bathroom, going up to our room and wandering the entire casino trying to find her.  She was sitting not twenty feet from me when she disappeared.  I was a wreck until I finally found her, exhausted and worn out.  But, she had a good time and I had one, too.  I love that lady more than life itself.  I'm glad I could give her a fun little adventure.