Member-only story
How to Help the Helpers — Fourth Quarter Begins pg266
Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic
The economy started to improve and both my parents were by now insane. My mother Joan had been shuffling in that direction for years. The gears of her brain were dropping teeth. The wheels would spin. Bizarre things would be said, and then the gears would catch for a few clicks and she’d know who we were. I would take Joan out for ice cream as it usually calmed her. Things seemed okay one afternoons as we drove through the crowded Walnut Creek downtown. I was chatting away when I noticed her staring at me with a crazed glare. Uh oh.
“I don’t know who you are,” Joan stated. Then she rolled down the window and shouted at startling volume, “Help! I’m being ABDUCTED. HELP ME!”. One of the world’s largest retirement villages was next to town and resigned, middle-aged women drove wild-eyed octogenarians around all the time. The expressions of nearby pedestrians changed from alarm to sympathy once they got a look at Joan and me. No one pulled out a cell phone. At this point I hoped someone would. I imagined a uniformed official removing her from the car and escorting her somewhere else. Or me.
“Yes, Officer. I am the world’s dumbest hostage taker. Please rescue one of us?”
