I used to take care of an old lady named Mrs. Fox who was 99 years old. She refused to buy an electric wheel chair. She also refused to let anyone push her around in her old wheel chair. Her legs didn’t work so much anymore so she would just inch her way around the house with slippered feet. It would take her damn near half an hour just to get down the short hallway to her bedroom (where she would hide everything from her teeth to her lunch in pockets, drawers and nooks and crannies). She didn’t like men or black people. She was rude and crotchety and lived on a diet of soggy shredded wheat and a shitload of Dove’s chocolate. She had a knack for playing in her own poo. Sometimes it was hard to tell which she had been eating. She didn’t have much of her memory left. Sadly, she rarely remembered me from one day to the next. Fun job, right?
Because she wouldn’t let anyone push her anywhere, she pretty much never went outside her home. She didn’t have enough strength in her legs to roll her chair over the threshold of the doors leading to the freedom of the old out doors. One day,after dinner, she skooches up to the table where I’m sitting and takes my hand. She looks me dead in the eyes and she says to me in the most determined of feeble voices, “Come with me! We’re busting out of this place.”
It was so funny it made me cry and so sad it made me laugh. I’ll never forget you, crotchety old Mrs. Fox. You lived so long because you had spunk.
