FIL ride, er slides, again

I am back. I did not post yesterday and I do not know why. Be that as it may, I am back. Well, I have had quite the day. All was going well, well except for a tire issue that I let fester. Little did I know, when FIL gave up the car (had it taken from his demented fingers, or the keys at least) he had put snow tires on the front wheels. That now explains the all season tires in the trunk. Anyway, we have had the beast since February of 2006, so I have been using those damn snow tires through the summers of 06 and 07.

Anyway, one of the tires has been getting flat. Because of the softness of the rubber in snow tires, the fucking thing started to split. I had meant to take it in and at least get the tire switched to one in the trunk. Today, the urgency grew.

I get a call around two thirty from the Wife to go see FIL. Apparently, he "fell" out of the wheelchair and they could not get him back up. An ambulance had been called. I arrive, notice the tire looks like it could go at any minute, but run up to the unit. The ambulance is already there. FIL is back up in the wheelchair, belted in.

The paramedics learned a valuable lesson. FIL is a pain in the ass. He had slid, slowly no doubt, out of the wheelchair on to the hardwood floor. The paramedics had a bitch of time getting him up, what with his general uselessness in such manners (I told you before, it is dead weight and like college cops having to clear students from a sit in, without the sense of a cause) and the slidy factor of the hardwood floor.

They got him up eventually, into the chair, and buckled him in. He undid the belt. They did it back up. He undid the belt. This went on until one of the paramedics got smart and did the belt up under his shirt. To get to it, he would have to look and work......things that he never had to do when MIL was around, so he does not possess those skills.

The paramedics asked me what they should do. They had checked his vital signs and all was "normal". I thought they should check them again if they thought there was anything "normal" about FIL. Anyway, I sent them on their way since there is no point in taking him to an ER. This has been done to death. Of course, they could have taken him outside and tossed him under a bus, but he would have liked that and would not have to have done anything for it, so not a good idea.

I think my mother is right. I am cruel. Then again, it is all in how you judge cruel and all those who sail in her.

I went back but could tell the tire was going to die at any time. I had wanted to get to my mechanics near my home. I am driving and the steering is getting strange and I am hearing a strange noise. The tire had died. Forunately, all I had to do was get down a steep, snowy hill and I would hit a gas station parking lot to pull over in. I did. Called CAA and they put on the donut. I drove to my mechanics who charged me $20 to change the tire and sent me on my way.

All in all, it could have been much worse. So, now I drive the beast with one snow tire and three all season tires on it. The next snow fall will be fun. I do have to say that the car was pretty good in the few snowstorms, and their aftermath, in which I drove the Beast.

To top things off, FIL has shingles. Now, the Wife is worried that we may have to delay FIL's move into the home. Sadly, I think his time has come (in some ways not soon enough) and it will be soon. He has completely given up and is no help at all in his own existence. Yet, he is still eating, so he is fueling himself up and could outlive us all. All on the basis of obliviousness.

The best part is this, his youngest sister, the Wife's completely narcissistic, idiot aunt, who felt it in good taste to show pictures of her daughter's wedding and grandchildren to anybody unlucky enough to have to listen to her at MIL's shiva (somehow a time of rememberance of the departed, MIL, became all about her) is away on a cruise while her brother is going to a home. Nobody around these parts could stand to her wail "My big brother! You can't put him in a home." again. The obvious solution to that would have been, "You do not want that, then you can have him live with you." Let's see her put her money where he mouth is. That will never happen.

That is all for now. Keep digging out of the snow. We did get dumped something fierce this weekend. That was a lot of snow. The snow banks are now a good six feet high. I have not seen anything like that since I was in Winnipeg (in July, I might add....no February). The last time I recall that kind of accumulation around here was in early 1999 and that took a number of snowfalls in quick succession. Ciao!