THINNER

 I wish I was referring to my body when I discuss "Thinner" but that is the last word I'd be using if I were talking about myself. I am also not referring to the book "Thinner" written by my all time favorite author, Stephen King.  What I do want to share with you today is my patience with The Man.  That is most assuredly getting thinner by the second.  It's nothing major so I almost, ALMOST, feel guilty writing this but quite honestly if I don't put this down in writing it will just fester until I explode. 

The most recent incident occurred this morning as we sat outside after breakfast.  The Man was in desperate need of a hair cut and because he is becoming more and more reluctant to go anywhere in public I offered to take on the challenge.  I have been cutting my own hair since I was 12. (This is probably no surprise to anyone who has ever met me and wondered who my hair dresser was because my hair usually looks like it's been run through a mix master. I happen to be extremely lazy when it comes to my hair.  I refuse to spend hours or even minutes standing in front of a mirror fluffing, drying and styling my golden locks. Well, they used to be golden but now they're just white. I much prefer getting out of bed in the morning, running some water over my head and then just brushing it one direction or another. ) The point I am getting at is that I am familiar with hair scissors and clippers and can do a decent job of cutting hair. Especially for a man who always wears a hat.  I have cut The Man's hair several times before today so he knows that although he will not get a professional hair cut he will be "de-fuzzed" enough so that he can go out in public without being mistaken for Big Foot. (This is not that much of a stretch because the UP is supposedly Big Foot country.)  But true to form The Man was full of suggestions and directions as to how I should proceed. I totally get it and I did a very good job of humoring him and distracting him so that we got the job done with a minimum of fear or blood. I was very proud of myself that I managed to get through another "chore" without killing him when he started discussing the RV.  It seems that The Man has made an appointment to bring the RV in to a local mechanic to have the brakes checked and oil changed.  He told me about this one day last week so I wrote it on the calendar for June 29th and put it out of my mind. Why he thought about this appointment today I have no idea but it popped into his brain and he was off and running. I got a blow by blow plan of how I would drive the RV and he would follow. We would pull out of the drive way, me leading and him following in his car. We would turn left out of the drive way and go down to the corner where we would once again turn left and  . . .     I listened for the next ten minutes while he went mile by mile down the road, down the hill, onto the "highway" past the town, past the lake . . .  I have probably driven this route a hundred times so I know it by heart but The Man felt he needed to make sure I knew exactly where I would be going THREE weeks from now.  I could be dead three weeks from now but before I die I will have to drive this route EXACTLY as described by The Man. 

I am finding that The Man is getting worse with giving detailed instructions for everything and anything.   I have a theory that his brain is beginning to feel the effects of the lack of oxygen because of his COPD. It is becoming a daily occurrence that we will be talking about something that we had discussed days ago but he will have no recollection of.  Naturally The Man insists that we never had the conversation and I am sure he thinks I must be lying to him but he never accuses me of that. 

I am totally sympathetic of his problem but I also wish my brain could shut down as he is giving me his endless detailed instructions of how to put the toilet paper on the roll or how to walk from here to the mail box.