Now, shocked silence fell over the house as my mom and I both paused. Why you might ask? Well, my dad does not have any money and for months now hasn't even had access to any for a reason. "Loss of good judgment is another sign of frontotemporal dementia. The person may spend money recklessly..."
Several times I've come home now and my always closed bedroom door was open. So, my concern was he'd been in there, found my hidden money and used it. While my mind was running in this direction, my mom was asking where he got it. After hemming and hawing around the question, he said he had used "all ones."
My mom and I came to find out he used $1 bills he's been saving the whole time my mom has known him! They weren't anything terribly valuable to anyone but him, I think, but it's still so sad. They were $1 with special numbers on them that he'd come across, a line of 121212 in a row or 9999, things like that. We had taken them out of our safety deposit box recently so he could go through and organize/enjoy them while he still could. Instead of organizing though, it seems he's spent them and probably on something useless for the pump since he's not really well at fixing things anymore anyway. So sad to see him like this and he just laughed when we said what a shame it was...
Ok, on to the good news. Err, I'm not really sure it's "good", but maybe "reassuring" is a better term for this situation.
I woke this morning to my mom freaking out. From the bits and pieces I heard while waking, she was worried my dad had been in my sister's room where we keep everything. I called her into my room to see what was going on and as it turned out, not only was she worried my dad had been in there, but she also couldn't find the key to the safety deposit box anywhere. Ah! I was able to immediately reassure her of a few things:
1) Monday she couldn't find the keys either and I reminded her she had taken them with us for our AC trip last week, so she had them then at least ... she just needed to remember where she'd put them after locating them Monday.
AND
2) One of our kitties actually ended up locked in my sister's room Monday after my mom had been in there and I had to go get her. The room was a mess (blanket on the floor, closet door open and stuff moved around) - perhaps from the cat? Perhaps from my mom being in the closet? A combination of the two? Anyway, all the "signs" my mom had thought meant my dad were in there had been there when I was in there last ... meaning the last person to mess it up was not my dad, but my mom (and maybe the cat). Oh boy!
Now, let me insert another story here. Since closing our safety deposit box at a bank and bringing the things home, my mom and I have been going through jewelry and such (like the cameo I bought in Italy), some of which is very old. One piece was this beautiful diamond ring my dad's aunt gave him worth quite a bit of money. I was wearing it for awhile, but recently took it off to shower and never put it back on because I was going somewhere I just didn't trust wearing it to.
Now, I've passed by where I left it on my desk and said, "Maybe I should put that somewhere safer", but it was just my room where no one ever really is and right next to where I often am - my computer, so I left it there. Several days ago though, I noticed it missing and my heart sank. Great! I'm the scapegoat anyway in the house and now I proved them all right - I'm awful!! I lost this ring. Ugh! I was sick. I moved everything around on my desk looking for it, got a flash light and got down on my hands and knees looking in corners and under my bed in case my foster kitten came across it and started batting it around, etc. No sign of it! I've been sick over this.
Back to this morning: Have I mentioned this safe has everything that could be important in there? All our jewelry in it, family heirlooms, birth certificates and she had put all the keys to everything in our possession in there (tractor, lawn mower, all our cars' spare keys, etc.). So, I found myself thinking, "Ok, my mom has lost the keys to our safe. Surely misplacing that ring pales in comparison to that, right?" So, I call my mom in again and tell her, "I haven't been able to find that ring I was wearing..."
Her response? "Oh yea, I took that out of your room I guess last week and put it in the safe."
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I didn't lose it! Oh my goodness, I didn't lose it ... my mom took it? From my room??? ::Ugh:: I think I made a noise sounding just like that and said that I've been sick over the ring and feeling so bad and she took it? "Yea," she said, "I thought I told you..."
Um, NO!!
Geez.
Oh, and she found the keys to the safe about 30 minutes later too :)
On a completely different note, there's ice on the lake this morning! It's officially winter now in my opinion :)
