TV and the beast.

My mother-in-law invited us over to her place last night to pick up an extra TV. The TV was a bribe to get us out there so she could see her grandkids, but my oldest son, (who is three and a half) hates going to grandma’s place. My mother-in-law lives in a nursing home. She has an advanced case of MS, and it has become necessary for her to receive a little more assistance.

We only stayed fifteen minutes. Max screamed the whole time, and it wasn’t like he screamed because he was unhappy, he sounded like someone was trying to kill him. In a nursing home with death at every corner, we felt that it was best to take the dying three year old home.

On the way out of the home I had the TV in one arm and the three year old in the other. Several occupants were making their way back from the dinning hall as I passed them on my way out. One woman, with frizzy white hair, screwed up her face at me and shook her head in disgust.

It isn’t often that I feel that I can read a person’s mind but I felt like this woman with the frizzy hair looked at me as if to say, “I don’t know you personally, but I can tell that you’re a creep! Look at you. You made your son cry. You took away somebody’s TV and in a place like this. WE LIVE IN HELL, AND NOW YOU WANT TO TAKE AWAY SOMEBODY’S TV? IN THIS PLACE OF ALL PLACES, YOU WANT TO TAKE AWAY TV?”

Little does this woman know that my mother-in-law has a state of the art flat panel in her room down the hall. This beast I have in my arms, not the child, is destined for the dust heap, or worse, my room.

I’m not a bad guy. It only looked that way.