Morning Visitor

Give me the treat already!

The last 24 hours have been pretty exciting here at the Riley homestead. First, Daisy got her first-ever haircut! Isn’t she cute? It only took us twelve years to make her appointment…and the groomer walked away with all ten fingers and completely unbroken skin!

It looks like the carpet is 6 inches tall and has swallowed her legs.

Back fat roll!!! We never knew it existed...

Maybe this is the place ...

 This morning I was doing my usual plant-watering routine when I saw a very elderly man park in front of my house. He was driving a beige four-door sedan. (What, you were expecting a bright orange Charger?) My front door was wide open to let some fresh air & sunshine in, and I peeked out to see what was happening. He shuffled up to my front steps and appeared to be admiring my flowers up-close…I went out the back door to continue watering and looked up just in time to catch him opening my screen door to walk right in my kitchen.

I hustled right back in. “Can I help you?” Crap. This was the second time an elderly person had gotten lost and tried walking into my kitchen.  And what if he’d gotten in? He would have made himself comfortable on the couch, turned on the Xbox, and the next thing you know we have a new roommate leaving Cheeto stains on the furniture and hanging the toilet paper roll upside-down.

The scene of the B & E, minus the B.

The poor guy looked confused; he had to be ninety, maybe 264. He had an impressive hearing aid situation in place, with external ports and docks and gizmos and antennae. “Do you know Isabelle Somethingorother? I’m looking for 808 Eleventh.”

Well, he was in the neighborhood, so to speak. But I shook my head. “Let’s go out on the porch so I can take a look at some of the street numbers a few houses down.”

“The back porch?”

“No,” I clarified loudly, “right here.” I peered down the street and gave a rough estimate of where I thought his friend lived, while he took a seat on the bench.

“Where’d you get all these flowers?”

"Stein's, Stuart's, Hrnak's, all over, I guess."

"Ever go to Allenville? Buy some sweet corn?" Turned out his son still runs the farm, selling sweet corn and strawberries at local stands and the city farmers’ market. I promised I’d pick some up when it was ready. We talked about the weather, and how much Oshkosh had changed in the last 80 years (I was using my imagination here), and about how he lived at Bella Vista senior retirement community. He apologized for his confusion.

“Things are so different today. I just get mixed up.”

“It happens,” I said, thinking that one day it would probably happen to me, too. 

“I forgot to bring the directions, so I’ll have to go back and get them, I guess.”

The idea of him driving through the busy city roundabouts to get back to the "home" gave me heartburn, but he'd made it this far, right? I helped him back down the stairs and told him to DRIVE SAFELY (with emphasis). Later I saw him still tooling around, doing a wide U-turn at my intersection and holding up traffic while he looked for house numbers.

Sometimes you don't even have to leave the house to find the story. Sometimes it comes right to you.