Oopsy Daisy

I was talking on the phone the other night with my new friend Dana. He was telling me about all of the things he was going to do with his family while he was visiting his hometown of Salt Lake City, Utah. One of the things he was going to do, he said, was take his mother's 77 year old husband "jeeping".

"What's jeeping", I asked innocently...sigh...I have so much to learn...

Actually I had a pretty good idea of what "jeeping" sounded like it was. Something very similar to "mud-riding" in the south. Something offroad. Something that could turn the jeep over. They were men, it was a jeep, there had to be either dirt or danger involved, right?

Right.
The husband (also known as Dana's stepdad only Dana NEVER calls him that...I wonder why...) just purchased himself a new jeep and wanted to drive it on narrow winding roads along the cliffs of Utah and he thought it would be a great idea if Dana drove it for him. "that doesn't sound like a good idea to me"...the words just slipped right out of my mouth. (I hate when that happens.) Dana just chuckled in a way that said "probably not, but I'm still gonna do it".

This afternoon he called. From the hospital. My heart was in my throat. "Remember when I said we were going jeeping?" he said. "Yes", I said calmly, as inside I was waiting for the news....my mind racing....there'd been an accident?....he was hurt?.....maimed?.......the old man fell out of the jeep?!!! What???!! For God's sake what?!!! He paused for a while...

"Has there been an accident?" I asked, again calmly. "Yes" he said. "My mother fell down a cliff."

His 66 year-old mother had wanted to come along and then had gotten scared and got out of the car and was taking pictures. She had slipped and fallen down a 15 foot cliff. Dana said her face looked awful. She had gotten some pretty bad cuts, was bleeding a lot, and her upper lip was badly swollen. Dana told his stepdad "we should call a hospital and have her airlifted just in case she has internal injuries". A 66 year-old woman probably with brittle bones from osteoporosis...I'm thinking that's a pretty good call. The stepdad said "Oh she's probably fine we can just drive her to the hospital. She'll be fine". No wonder he doesn't call this man his stepdad. Meanwhile Dana ran down the side of the cliff and picked up his elderly mother and carried her up to the car, removing his shirt and pressing it into the cuts on her head to stop the bleeding.

They drove her to the hospital. Not Dana. He was sitting in the back seat holding and comforting his mom. No, the 77-year- old man who thought she was fine did all the driving. I think he drove closer to the speed limit than I do on an average day on my way to work...and I'm a slow driver...just ask anyone. The stepdad made sure to stop at all the traffic lights.

Did I mention that Dana's 21 year-old daughter was in the car with them and could have (at least I would think she could have) held the shirt on her bleeding grandmother's wounds while Dana drove and the nearly-octogenarian stepdad could have sat on the sidelines? No...? I didn't....? That's because Dana didn't mention the daughter was even there until that point in the story. I had asked him several times why he didn't drive, but at that point I realized he just needed to know he'd done his best. So I said, dutifully, "well, you can't do everything". Good girl, Lisa.

When they arrived at the hospital Dana carried his mom through the doors that read "Emergency". The people inside looked at him quizzically and then explained to him that this was not the emergency entrance. At that point Dana, still holding his bleeding elderly mother in his arms since apparenly these people didn't "do" strectchers, yelled a few choice words at them and asked them why they labeled a blankety-blank entrance "Emergency" when it was, in fact, blankety-blank NOT the blankety-blank emergency entrance. Then a nice lady showed him to a bed where he could lay his mother.

Fortunately the stepdad was right. The hospital found no internal injuries after a CT scan. They picked the rocks out of her skin and sewed her up. No more jeeping with the old man.

Whew.....what a relief.

Baker's

My favorite place to grocery shop is "Baker's" on 132nd and Maple. "Favorite place to grocery shop" is kind of a misnomer because I HATE grocery shopping. It ranks right up there with visits to the gynecologist and to the dentist among things I hate to do. But one has to have certain things. In my case on this particular night the things I had to have were beverages, specifically bottled water (I LOVE "Fiji" artisan water) cranberry juice (to ward off bladder infections) and Berringer white zinfandel. I can do without food but have found that I will brave the horrors of a grocery store to get my favorite beverages.

So last night I'm at the store and the only registers open are the self-checkout lanes. Oh, did I mention that one of the things I do to avoid the grocery-shopping people is to go late at night when the store is empty? Because to be honest it is not the store I hate as much as the people shopping in it. I don't know why. It's not personal. The stock boys I love. I can take or leave the clerks. But the other shoppers just....

One of the bad things about the self-checkout, as convenient as it is, is that there's no room to put your stuff. So when the voice says "Please place your groceries in the bag" after about 4 items there's no space left. And if you move your stuff the voice will tell you to put it back. I had a shopping cart full of bottles. With 4 cases of water, 4 jugs of juice and 2 bottles of wine I had stuff everywhere. Just as I am scanning my final items and trying to figure out where to place them up walks this couple in their, oh...mid 30's, with a case of beer and a couple of other alcoholic/party implements. So I start to feel the stress of rushing to finish so this couple can have the register. I speed up a little....I feel that nervous internal quake you get when people are waiting on you...you know the one...like the way you feel in the airport security line when you have to take your shoes off and the people behind you are huffing and puffing because you're holding up the line.

The guy, clearly sensing my distress, goes "why don't we just go to that other register over there"....meaning the completely EMPTY register where there was NO ONE, instead of the one covered with all my bottles. And the girls goes "No this is fine, we can wait" (for me to finish) and she takes the case of beer from the guys hands and places it in the baby seat of MY SHOPPING CART. And just where did she think I was going to put all of those bottles after I took them from the 6 inches of self-checkout space? I had wondered if that was liquor I smelled on their breaths across the 3 to 5 feet of space between us, but that just cinched it.

At this point I just stopped and looked at her. I know what you're thinking but I didn't give her "that look"...the angry black woman "oh no you didn't" look. It was more of a "this situation was already funny, but I'm going to hold back my laughter of disbelief and just look at you until you realize what you just did" look. Also known as the "you can't be serious......?" look.

The girl looks at me, trying to look as sober as she could and says something. I don't know what she said. What I heard was "why are you looking at me like that?" At which point I replied "This is my cart. I still need it to take my stuff out to my car". At which point she removed her case of beer.

Sigh.....you just can't make this stuff up.

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