The Bigger They Get

Yes,Dear and I are leaving tomorrow for a weekend at my sister’s vacation trailer. It’s in a small community on a river in Maryland about an hour from our home. With all Yes,Dear’s health problems this year we haven’t had a break and we’ve really been looking forward to a couple of days of AWAY.

We’ve never been there before, so Sister gave us the keys and a page of written instructions about things like how to turn on the water and how to charge the golf cart, etc. But she keeps telling us…

…cue Jaws music…

Things She Forgot To Write Down

(Now, remember, I’m traveling with a man who, just this week, had a defibrillator implanted in his chest because his heart can’t always be relied upon to beat regularly.)

So far, the conversation has gone something like this:

Sister: Oh, I forgot to write it down. If you have an emergency, there’s a number on the fridge for security…

Me: Okay, good.

Five minutes later…

Sister: Oh, I forgot to write it down, but I never put in a land line, and the only place I can get a cell signal is on the beach or sometimes at the top of the hill by the little store.

Me: So if we have an emergency I’ll have to run down to the beach to call for help?

Sister: Well, one of the neighbors said he can sometimes get a signal by pointing his phone antenna towards the cable TV, but the beach isn’t too far.

Me: What if I’m laying on the floor bleeding out? How do I get help then?

Sister: Oh, that reminds me, be careful getting out of the shower because the bathroom floor is lower than the shower floor.

(Oh. My. God. I’m buying a satellite phone. And inviting the local ambulance corps to stay with us.)

Me: Okay, so all we need to bring are towels and food?

Sister: Yeah, just bring stuff you can microwave or cook in the toaster oven. I haven’t turned the stove or the oven on because they’re gas and that makes me nervous so I don’t use them.

(I wonder if the ambulance corps likes grape or strawberry jelly on their peanut butter sandwiches.)

Sister: Oh, and I forgot to write it down but the outlets don’t work at the end of the porch where I keep the golf cart, so you have to plug it in in the shed. You’ll probably need to charge the cart for 5 or 6 hours, but then it should be good for the weekend.

Me: So I can drive it around looking for a cell phone signal when we have an emergency.

Sister: Yup.

Hey, Sis, I meant to tell you how much I was looking forward to this weekend before we had this little chat…but I Forgot To Write It Down.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 10:57 pm and is filed under Stuff and Nonsense. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.