surreal experience

Today I had a surreal experience.

Each day (almost), I go to visit my in-laws at an assisted living facility. Part of the visit consists of sitting at one of the tables in the common room working a puzzle with my dear, sweet MIL. Its usually fairly quiet in the room, and sometimes other residents will sit with us and help with the puzzle. Sometimes staff will work the puzzle with us while on break. I enjoy it.

Understand that MIL is in a wheelchair, and has to speak very slowly - I'd say the rate is about five words a minute.She is as sharp as she ever was, but the words just don't come when she wants them to.  I'm pretty good at filling in the blanks for her, because I do that anyway due to a moderate hearing loss. Of course, it's hopeless when there is too much noise in the room, but usually the noise level is not so bad.

Today, we were working on a new puzzle, still building the edge pieces, and I had asked her to choose whether she'd like to work on the sky edge, or the grass edge at the bottom. She chose the sky. We got to work.

A woman came into the room and stood next to the table, and I was expecting her to sit down and start putting some pieces together, but she didn't sit down. She stood there and began talking. But she didn't just talk, she gave us a streaming narrative at 350 words per minute. I think she could have given Hilary E., a dear friend who works in radio, a run for her money. The words were clear, they were just fast - and I couldn't quite follow. I prepared to pay attention to her, for patience is one of my spiritual gifts, and has been since I actually requested it during prayer once, a long time ago. That is a request that God never refuses to grant, and he does it quickly. You know what I mean if you've ever prayed for such a thing.

And then something happened. Now, you have to understand that I don't multi-task very well. I can't listen to two things at once, or do two things at once. I am subject to stack overflow errors, to use a computer programming term. As she spoke, I became aware of everything around me, as if in a dream. Behind and to the right the television was playing a comedy of some sort, evidently an adult comedy, because a man announced "I'm gay," and the canned laughter seemed to really appreciate the line. The woman he said it to asked him when  he first knew, and he said, "when you kissed me just now." The canned laughter lost its composure completely.

Behind and to the left, there was a Skip Bo game under way, and one of the ladies was explaining to a  new player that you aren't supposed to set up the next player for an easy play, the idea is to keep other players from being able to play, don't you know that?

A resident in a wheel chair, I think her name is Wilma, asked about her niece. I feel sorry for this woman, because this is pretty much all she does all day: she wheels around and repeatedly asks people about her niece. "Have you seen Vickie?" goes the refrain, and everybody there - residents, staff and visitors - have learned to tell her that Vickie is at work, or we haven't seen her today, not yet. Staff usually promises she'll be by at five, because Wilma won't remember by then anyway. In fact, she'll forget within a couple of minutes, and she'll be asking all over again.

The woman with the radio personality speech habits was explaining that her therapy sessions were being cut off because of Obamacare, but that she was going to take advantage of the RIDES program, which would take her and three friends to a restaurant, if she could get three friends to go with her. The character on TV announced again, "I'm gay," and went on to explain that this wasn't about her, it was about him, but I wasn't sure if he was still explaining to the same person, since the original person would of course know by now, having been told before. Back at the Skip Bo table, somebody asked "Is this like 42?" but I didn't hear the answer. Wilma was asking again about Vickie, and somebody in a uniform was telling her that she was still at work and would be by later. Wilma explained that she needed to talk to her, and did she have the key to the cigarette cabinet? Unfortunately, she did not. But Vickie would know.

Now the lady at our table was telling us that she didn't know if the RIDES program was a taxi or a bus, but it was probably a bus, because it might be hard to fit five people in a taxi, and besides, her painting therapy was coming to an end, unless - unless the RIDES program could take her to the place where they were doing the painting! But if they did, how would they bring back the wet canvas in a taxi, so it had to be a bus. The words "I'm gay" came once again from the television, and I wondered how many people he was telling about his coming out of the closet, since this time he was irritated that apparently somebody had failed to be discreet about it, and had told his family - and again, it wasn't about her, and it wasn't her place to tell his family. Shrieks of laughter came from the Skip Bo table, where somebody had just won or made a mistake, and there was talk of whether it was skill or just luck. I wondered just how many people the gay guy was going to come out to before the show ends.

MIL and I kept nodding and smiling at the right places (I think), and the woman kept talking. A television in a nearby room down the hall was telling us that some politician or another was concerned about the "fiscal cliff" that we were heading for, and then the interviewer let him explain that "we do have to do something about it, and I certainly don't want to leave the burden to the middle class, but we have to ---" and I shut that part out, because it was a politician and they always lie anyway.

Once again we heard the words "I'm gay," completely ignored by the enthusiastic Skip Bo players, and the laugh track continued to have a roaring good time. Then somebody on staff, after assuring Wilma again that Vickie would be there later, came to get the woman and encourage her to go play Skip Bo with the others, since the current game was almost over. Oh, my yes, she certainly would, and she left the table. I wondered if she knew how Skip Bo might compare to 42.

The mists parted, and I became focused again on one thing at a time. Left in relative silence, when I could tune out the next "I'm gay" announcement, I looked down at the puzzle pieces. And my MIL leaned over to me and whispered "You can't work a puzzle like that," and shook her head, and smiled. She is right, you cannot work a puzzle while all that is going on.

I wonder if that's what ADD is like.