Gramps has thankfully had some relatively eventless days, so far this week aside from some small funnies:
- Not understanding that the chocolate easter eggs I bought are covered in foil, and you have to unwrap them before you eat them.
- The Liberty Tax Service office across the street from our business has a human billboard dressed as Lady Liberty in front of their office dancing around to advertising their services. Gramps has been encouraging me to dress the same.
So here is a classic from the April 2005 archives:
On Tuesday I came in the office and Gramps had a beat up, 1970’s looking suitcase next to his desk. I asked, “Going on a trip?”
He then proceeded to tell me a story about a guy who came in the office.
The guy told Gramps that he owned an Oakland condo worth $1,000,000 and he wanted to borrow some money on it. Gramps got the guy’s name (PAUL Parker), address and phone number. Paul then said that he needed BART money to get back to Oakland. He asked for $5 and said he would come pay Gramps back. Gramps gave Paul $5 and asked for some collateral…hence, the suitcase.
Paul said that he didn’t speak English, so Gramps told him that he could come back later and talk to me in Spanish. I was very impressed Gramps got so much out of the conversation without speaking the same language. That should have been my first clue something was amiss.
Gramps was all fired up that we were going to get a loan deal and a listing, and how it was good I was here so I could translate. The whole thing sounded fishy to me (Someone with the last name “Parker” not speaking English?) so I looked up the address in the title records and the phone number. Both were registered to a “PAULA” Parker.
So I asked Gramps, “Are you sure it wasn’t a woman?”
We waited a couple days to see if the guy came back to pick up the suitcase. Meanwhile, everyone in the office has been wondering what is inside the suitcase. We decided it had to be a bomb.
Paul never came back, so I called the number he gave and asked for Paula Parker. She told me that she was Paul’s TWIN sister (Yep, you read right: Twins, Paul and Paula, which just adds to the humor in this story).
So the woman tells me that her brother had escaped from San Francisco General’s mental ward and the police have an APB out looking for him so they can send him back there. Paula said if he should come in the office again, we should discretely call the police and have them pick him up. The woman also said, “You could have probably told from the way he talks and looks, that he is not OK.” Evidently that one escaped Gramps!
Alzheimer’s Fact: Abnormal plaques (comprised of a brain protein called beta amyloid) develop in the spaces between nerve cells and limit the communication between cells, leading to a decrease in cognitive functioning.
