My husband is nothing if not inventive. Over the past year he has created multiple, novel ways to corral his belongings. He’s wrapped his shirts and trousers in the plastic wastebasket liners, he’s lodged his toothbrush in its plastic container along with six tightly folded handkerchiefs, he’s used the tie-backs on his curtains to bind books together.
Like many residents, Peter packs his belongings to go home, sometimes several times a week; sometimes his room is tidy. He’s stuffed underwear in his shoes, and recently he crammed all of his clothes into a pair of trousers. It looked like the bottom half of a scarecrow, I’m told. If I’d been there I would have taken a picture.
Small items regularly disappear — nail brush, wooden pencils, socks — only to be fished out of his pockets an hour, a day, a week later. One day I noticed he had no sheets or pillow cases on his bed. He’d slept on the mattress with the mattress pad as a cover the night before. Didn’t stop him from sleeping soundly, I’m sure.
Lately, I’ve noticed he often wears two, long-sleeved dress shirts. He isn’t cold, he’ll say, he just forgot he already had a shirt on when he got dressed. One day he was wearing two belts, the end of one fastened to the buckle of the other. “Something’s wrong here,” he said with a silly look on his face.
The clever ways he keeps from taking his medications are not funny, but he’s such an impish personality that he gets away with his tricks almost as often as not. The doctor just increased one medication significantly to curb his too-high A1C. Full blown diabetes is knocking on dementia’s door. That is not laughable at all.
Header photo: Peter enjoys the laughs he creates.
2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist. 
Oh No.
Oh, yes! 🙁
I gotta say he showed me a clever way to store books last week. He had 2 clothes hangers and had 2 heavy, hardback books perfectly placed and we hung them in the closet. Odd…maybe but completely crafty and clever! As for the A1C….keep the sugar intake down very low and he him up and walking briskly to possible shed a few pounds? Definitely don’t want him to be diagnosed with diabetes:( my dad is diabetic & it’s definitely no laughing matter.) I strongly agree with you on that momma tough! Let me know if I can help in any way possible 🙂
Thanks, Patricia. You are wise beyond your years. <3
❤️💕😂…at least he uses space saving packing techniques 😉
That he does! Once an engineer, always an engineer. <3
How beautiful this is…yet so sad. But keeping the memories,good or bad seem to be helpful and you can hold them close to you
Helpful, yes, and I’ll never forget any of it. Wish I could dose him with some of my elephant-like memory. Thanks for your comment.
Peter keeps himself well occupied. You have to wonder what drives the activity. There is no logic to us but there probably is to him!
It’s a sad day when I’m the more logical one!!
Well this was quite humorous until I got to the part about the meds…..he is stubborn isn’t he and he does conveniently remember he doesn’t like his meds!!!! Hmmmmmm!
Yes, funny how he remembers that! My dad, who was very hard of hearing, always said he could hear what he wanted to hear. Sorta the same thing. 😉
He is quite the guy!!
He is that!