Last Wednesday and Thursday my son was over to do some repair on a couple of floors in our house. I say repair, but it was more like demolition and replace. It was a horrid mess. Old houses. What are you going to do?

When my son pulled back the carpet in the spare bedroom he found serious rot, as expected. Half the room had to be pulled up. Some of the joists were rotten as well. He also found some animal bones. I’m pretty sure they’re skunk bones. We’ve heard commotion under the house so many times over the years, and then had the pleasure of “skunk” for days afterward. Just awful.

There’s a small area in front of the front door that has been a bit soft for a while. My son decided to fix that, too. When he pulled up the linoleum, it was a big rotten mess, too.

The job got done, Dad supervising most of the time, and helping a little. Thank goodness we had air conditioning or that Italian blood my son has running through his veins would have boiled.

Yesterday is one of the days we take our garbage up to the dumpster, which is about 1/4 mile up the road. I gathered up the garbage, Dad loaded up the car and ventured up the road. He was gone an awfully long time so I started to worry. At first, I thought he just ran into someone up there who liked to chew a guy’s ear off, but Dad knows not to hang out too long because he knows I’ll worry. 12 minutes had passed. It takes about 4 minutes, 5 tops to get up there, toss the garbage and then drive back. 15 minutes passed. Great. What the hell was I supposed to do? I’m disabled and Dad has our only vehicle. I wondered, Should I call 911? I knew something had happened and I was really worried. About that time, a beat-up pick-up pulls into our driveway. It looked like the passenger might be Dad so I waited.

Sure enough, Dad got out of the truck and I opened the front door. I asked him what had happened and I seriously thought he had run off the road or got hit or something serious. He told me that he left the car running while he unloaded and dumped the garbage but he remembered that he forgot a big box in the backseat. So he opened the car door, pushed the button on the fob, accidentally locking the car. He didn’t realize it until after he slammed the car door shut! He knew I was going to worry!

He tried the closest neighbor which is right next door to the dumpster and no one was home. He then went across the road to the other neighbor’s house. He hoped someone was home who could drive (the man who lives there is very old and disabled) so he could get a ride back up here to get my fob. He sure didn’t want, nor did he need to be walking 1/4 mile back home, UPHILL in this HEAT!! Thankfully, the elderly man was home and he was able to drive. So, he drove Dad home to get my fob and then back up to the car.

After a couple of minutes, Dad was back home safe and sound but exhausted and a bit stressed. He’s 82 years old, after all.