Thursday, October 11, 2007

The Playboy of the Western World

I found out why my father-in-law keeps ending up in the emergency ward.

Would you like to know why my father-in-law keeps ending up in the emergency ward?

Guess why my father-in-law keeps ending up in the emergency ward.

I'll tell you why.


When I met this man twenty years ago he was partying like an 18 year old. He smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day. He drove a Porsche. He could drink like a fish and never show the effects, work all day, cruise tail all night and then come home to the waiting arms of a new guy every few months. Not b-list desperation cases, either...hot college guys.

Magically twinklicious college guys.

Doe-eyed, slutty college guys, tight pants, magnificent upper body development-type-of-guys.

Shall I stop now? OK.

He knew everyone. Everyone knew him-and liked him. He always had visitors and he always had plans. In fact, it became apparent after I'd known him awhile that my father-in-law, a man in his late 60's at the time, was the guy in the group that all the other guys hung out with so they could catch the overflow.
It was NUTS.
This was not like the 60-year-old people I remembered. The 60-year-old people I remembered had canes and smelled like pee and watched television all day.

Make no mistake, this is still one charming, sexy old bastard, too. I mean, he's one of those people who's got 'IT'. He walks into a room and everyone knows. Or rolls into the room at this stage of the game. Still.

20 years later. The man can't drive his Porsche any more. He can't climb a set of stairs. He has COPD, he uses oxygen, he wears compression stockings and uses a walker. Has this slowed him down? Oh HELL no, buttercup.

Now they come to him.

For example, when I busted him and the cute cable guy right after he'd moved in to assisted living I just figured "Aw, what a nice kid." (No, no, nothing gross...just a little bluster and delay answering the door and a couple of big grins. This has happened before and I've kind of figured out what's up by now.)

After it happened a few more times I started realizing that my father in law knew ALL the nice young kids. In Washington. Possibly in the entire Northwest. And Vancouver.

The last time was a couple of weeks ago, when I busted one of the surfer-boy maintenance guys leaving his place (poor kid saw me standing there and blushed purple.) I just smiled and walked on by. Room service. Just one of the many features of modern assisted living.

One of the Fan Club clued me in to the rest of the story. "Why do you think he never answers the phone in the evenings? You know he hardly spends any time there. Everyone's dragging him to the clubs."

Now he's in interim care for a few weeks. I went in today to pick up a few things from his apartment for him. The day manager had a quiet word with me on the elevators.
"You know, I think he's....overdoing things..." she said. Then she paused and did the Groucho Marx eyebrows thing a couple of times at me. I blinked.
"He goes out a lot. And he he has a LOT of...um...visitors." She did the 'woo woo' thing with her eyebrows again.

-Oh.

I thanked her nicely, got off the elevator, and waited for the doors to close before I started snorting and whooping. It hurt.

Evidence left behind at the scene confirmed her theory.

Here is some good advice: You should be careful what drawer you check when you look for someones' medication. Lots of people keep it in the kitchen. Like my father in law does. Not in the bedside table. No, he certainly does NOT keep his medication in his bedside table.

No, he doesn't.




So then.
Why is my father-in-law in the hospital?





My father in law is in the hospital for overexertion.

Jesus Christ.

31 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:54 AM

    That's just incredible! Who is he? A gay Jack Nicholson?

    ReplyDelete
  2. There is a TV advert currently running in the UK suggesting that if you get your heart beating faster for a few minutes every day you can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease.

    Sound like the OMIL got that message a long time ago.

    Thanks for the link BTW :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Okay, he sounds phenomenal!

    The post was hysterical.....trying to quit the giggles.

    Nope, can't stop the laughing...I'd better go and try to write something sensible later.....

    *later*

    Okay I'm in control of myself now....

    Your father in law sounds like someone who would get on very well with my cousin (his recent boyf is a 19yr old uni student and a damn good lookin boy too) sheer brilliant.....I hope I'm still having that much fun at that age.
    xxx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ahem. He must think that old age should burn and rave at close of day. Which is probably a good idea, if you consider the alternative.

    ... and, er, if you have at least three orgasms a week, you're supposed to reduce your risk of having a stroke by some huge amount.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Betty: Doe that apply to women as well?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Boys keep swinging!

    MJ: fake ones don't count

    ReplyDelete
  7. that's just friggin brilliant. i really really really want to meet your FIL.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous8:26 AM

    So that's the fountain of youth, hot young college boys! There's a campus less than 2 blocks from where I am. :)

    Hope he's out and rested soon.

    ReplyDelete
  9. It must be something they put in the water around your parts.

    I thought Bigfoot was a myth, but I'm beginning to think differently.

    ReplyDelete
  10. 'shot: yeah, no kidding. i belong to a couple of online caregiver groups and nobody warned me about the 'don't check the nightstand' thing. i think i should complain.

    qenny: a gay Lee Marvin. this is a man among men.

    sopwith: not a problem. i wish i could write like that, sopwith. that was COOL.

    punkie: you are a giggly thing! kind of gives you hope for the future, doesn't it?

    betty: bear in mind...this guy has SLOWED DOWN CONSIDERABLY. in his youth? Jehosephat. it's a wonder he was able to slow down long enough to indulge an idle whim and create the Yummy Biker.

    mj: sorry, betty's....busy.

    frobi: guess who he reminds me of, party boy? X!

    cb: come on out this way and you can. hurry, though. better keep an eye on your pirate, though.

    hoosier: see, that's the drawback. you live longer, but you have to put up with college guys.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Now I hate your FIL. Sex and charisma should be evenly distributed among people. One dashing codger should not be getting most of it while so many people get so little. I think he got some of my sex!

    Maybe when I turn 60-something...

    P.S.: Does he have a younger, straight brother for my mother?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Bringing new meaning to the term "assisted living". :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hey hun.

    An extra wee comment...well actually a favour.....yep, first I giggle inanely through your finely written post and then I have the cheek to ask for a favour....sheesh.
    However, the reason I'm asking this favour of yourself is that you are a lass who doesn't pull punches and you certainly don't pander to ass-kissing...........basically, I put a couple of wee sketches that i've recently done, on my blog........and although to start with, it didn't matter what anyone thought of them, I've now apparently turned into a comment whore! So, the favour is, would you take a wee peek and tell me what you think....honestly......feel free to hate them, or like them, but either way, if you have the time, I'd love your opinion!

    Have a lovely weekend with the yummy biker, and I hope Playboy recovers from his exertions soon...(small giggle).x

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous11:47 AM

    Good for him!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hey, I want to go into assisted living that way, full of vim and vigor and eyeing the cute cable guy and stuff (and then doing him). You have to admire a man so full of life like that!

    ReplyDelete
  16. garfy: sorry, you slid in under the wire there.// I'm married to his son...I can state pretty much conclusively that it's a genetic thing.

    oh, yeah. back off, bitches. WAAAAY off.

    danator: maybe when he goes to that big bath house in the sky it will all come filtering back into the universe, though. and no...the straight younger brother died a few years back while harvesting morels.

    g: isn't it MARVELOUS??

    pumpkin: done and done. Wee!

    joy: yeah! rock ON!

    carmy: you kind of lose sight of the fact that these folks are ADULTS. they get sick and kind of dependent and you start thinking of them as children...until you open the bedside table, shut it quickly, sit on the edge of the bed and BLUSH.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Well now I KNOW you're adding a pinch of salt to the tale FN...everyone knows that YOU don't blush. (wink)

    ReplyDelete
  18. 'shot: that's the pernt! i didn't think i did EITHER!

    ReplyDelete
  19. That's frickin' brilliant.

    I think I have new hero.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous5:32 PM

    way to go grandpa!

    ReplyDelete
  21. I'm still snorting at the notion of a gay Lee Marvin. I have the image of him going to the army jail, selecting the 12 meanest bastards in there, and half-way to Germany explaining that they haven't been picked to attack a Nazi castle, but to... um...

    I can just see the expression of glum resignation on Charles Bronson's face. And the mute terror from Trini Lopez.

    ReplyDelete
  22. That's what I'm talkin' about!
    Good for him.
    *hums Don't Stop Me Now by Queen.

    Reminds me of the old joke about the farmer who has this oversexed Rooster who screws anything that moves. The farmer warns him that he is going to screw himself to death if he doesn't slow down.

    One day he sees vultures circling above a motionless Rooster and just as he bends over to pick him up the Rooster says,
    "Shit! They were just about to land."

    ReplyDelete
  23. oh, come on, what was in the bedside table?! Ben-wa? It can't be that bad, my best girlfriend is the biggest, gayest queenie in all of whatcom county! my fairy godfather runs the local sex shop! i wanna know!
    and good for grampa for nailing anything that moves, whenever possible! We would all like to be doing the same at that age. And by the same, I mean the cute cable guy, the pool boy, the meter reader...errrm.

    and EWWW re: dad's genetics. thanks ma. just...thanks. uuuggggh. much grosser than ANYTHING contained in the post. parents don't do the nasteh!

    ReplyDelete
  24. Use it or lose it, so they say.
    Good for your FIL! Even given the oxygen bottle and surgical stockings, I hope I spend my twilight years like him (heterosexually though, obviously). My FIL, a 6ft 2ins former rugby lock forward spent a month wasting away to eight stone thanks to cancer, gasping for breath and unable at the end to even roll his head across the pillow to look at anyone. His final words to me? "Fuck off now please mate. I'm going to die now."

    ReplyDelete
  25. He's a card. A one-off. A bright shining light. There should be more people like that in the world. xx

    ReplyDelete
  26. Anonymous2:20 AM

    YEAH! Yeah for the Playboy! Isn't this want we all want, when we grow up/old, after all?

    ReplyDelete
  27. Ha Ha Ha.
    Well half of me thinks way to go , and then the Beast over active imagination kicks in and I can hear the amorous snap of support stockings and I then think ewwwwww.
    Anyone over the age of 65 who comes anywhere near me for the next twenty four hours , its going to be like 'Back off casanova , this relative spring chicken aint for pluckin!!!!'

    ReplyDelete
  28. Great. Now I want to see Lee Marvin and Clint Walker gettin' it on. Thanks a lot, Footman.

    ReplyDelete
  29. i LOVE it! thanks, sugar, i needed this...hell, i hope there ae good stories to tell about me one day! ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  30. persephone: welcome! and think you! i agree 100%.

    pink: go, grampa!go, grampa!go, grampa! it's your birthday!

    tim: And you're waiting for what; permission? GET TO WORK ON THE SCREENPLAY!

    homoE: dude, are you BACK???
    reminds me of the one about the ant and the elephant.
    an ant is walking along a branch when it happens to notice some hunters off in the distance sneaking up on an elephant which happens to be snacking on the same tree where the ant is. the ant goes up and tells the elephant to hide, thus saving it's life.
    later on the elephant returns and thanks the ant gratefully. "What can I do to repay you?" it asks.
    the ant thinks, then replies 'Tell you what. Lemme do you, baby."
    the elephant is amused by this request and agrees.
    the ant crawls back to the necessary locale and begins putting it to the elephant just as hard as he can.
    meanwhile the elephant is looking around, watching the clouds, nibbling a few leaves. suddenly a bee stings it.
    Ouch, dammit!" yells the elephant.
    "SUFFER, BITCH!" replies the ant.

    SSA: you see, I try and maintain a little appropriate distance, i call you and say 'don't read the post, it's kind of gross' and you go ahead and read it and get grossed out and what am I gonna do? SUFFER, BITCH!

    rocky: plus he just called to tell me he won $$ playing poker last night. oy vey.

    kristy: that, and regular bowel movements.

    beast: you are ACTUALLY WORRIED that you're going to get chased all over town by horny old men later? SEE? I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT! BENNY HILL WAS A DOCUMENTARY! HA!

    danator: i want to see lee marvin getting it on with footman.

    savannah: glad to help, chickie!

    ReplyDelete