While Mom is rehabbing, she must call down to the kitchen and order her own meals. Every day, she has the same breakfast: a pancake, a turkey-sausage link, and cranberry juice. She used to ask for bacon, but there's no fooling that kitchen staff. "We're sorry, honey, but bacon is not on your diet." So she resigned herself to the turkey sausage, which she has grown to like.
Saturday morning, she was sitting in her chair watching TV, waiting for the physical therapy people to come get her, having polished off her pancake, turkey-sausage link, and cranberry juice. A man came in with a tray. "I have your breakfast for you."
"What? I already ate one breakfast. See? There's the tray."
"I was told to bring you this breakfast."
"But I can't eat two! Do I have to eat that?"
"I don't know. But I brought it."
"Are you sure that's for me?"
"Are you Val's Mom? It says it's for Val's Mom."
"Yes. That's me. Just leave it, I guess."
Mom did not even lift the lid to see what was on that other tray. She had already eaten her breakfast. So she called down to the kitchen. "Why did I get another breakfast? I only asked for one."
"Oh, somebody called down and said you didn't like your breakfast, and wanted something else."
"But I always get the same thing. Every day. And it was good. I was not unhappy with it. So I am sorry that you made me another breakfast, but I did not complain. My breakfast was fine."
"That's okay. It's not your problem."
Now Mom is baffled. Why would somebody say she didn't like her breakfast, and wanted something else? "I think somebody working here just wanted breakfast. If that happens again, I'm going to get to the bottom of it!"
"You go, Jessica Fletcher! I know you'll solve the case."
"Well, I don't want them thinking I'm a complainer. I'm not."
I really wish she would have looked under that cover to see what was on the tray. If it was something not on her diet, there could be a plan to knock her off.
Your Mom is a Pip!!
ReplyDeleteIn New Jersey, that is a good thing, and not a backup singer...(not that there is anything wrong with a backup singer.)
I mean it--when your mom gets home, she needs to start her own blog. Her posts would be way better than "Murder She Wrote."
ReplyDeleteOh, man! Give the old gal bacon! I would smuggle it in for her every once in a while.
ReplyDeleteI am not wanting to know why and how she got two trays.
Two breakfasts? How do I get admitted to this place?
ReplyDeleteArh! I think of Betty Davis serving up a mouse on a covered dish in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte. Um, no thanks, I wouldn't lift that lid either.
ReplyDeleteIf Val's Mom (like Alice) can believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast, think how many she could believe before TWO breakfasts!
ReplyDeletejoeh,
ReplyDeleteYOU be the one to tell my mom she's a PIP. She sometimes suffers from Emily Litella Syndrome.
*****
Sioux,
She could sell the rights, and have a whole 1st season of the resulting series comprised of looking through her sheer curtains at the man across the road who WATCHES her every time she goes out. Not too sure on the whole IRONY thing, but her watching him from within because he watches her...kind of seems like it might fit the irony mold.
*****
Birdie,
You would think that once you're 80 years old, you can loosen up a bit and enjoy some bacon if you wish. It's not like she's chugging Jack Daniels or shooting heroin.
*****
Stephen,
First, you have to become an 80 year old woman. Then you must have a seizure while leaning over the couch cooing at your great-granddaughter on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Then you must take an ambulance ride to a local hospital, be wrongly diagnosed with a stroke, then take another ambulance to a city hospital where you must lay around in bed for six days, then get the boot and take another ambulance ride to a different hospital, where they make you work out 3 hours a day, and if you're good-natured and unlikely to raise a stink, somebody will say you need another breakfast.
Believe me, you would be much better off asking how to get to Carnegie Hall, because we know all that takes is practice, practice, practice.
*****
Linda,
ACK! Nobody puts MY MOM behind a covered-dish mouse!
*****
Leenie,
I would rather think how much I might be worth after two breakfasts! At least TEN dollars, I suppose.
Oh, I would have eaten it in a New York Minute. (That's very fast.)
ReplyDeleteCatalyst,
ReplyDeleteYou and me both!
Let the record show that although she IS a country bumpkin, even VAL has heard of a New York Minute. But around these parts, we call it a Hot New York Minute.