ET!

October 1, 2010

Last night we were watching the OSU-Texas A&M football game. I guess  Jerry hollered really loud once and woke Mother up.  We didn’t know she was up, but she turned the wrong way coming out of her room into the darkened hallway.  Chloe, our 11-year-old granddaughter, had just about fallen asleep when Mother banged open Chloe’s bedroom door and stuck her head around the corner.  Jerry and I heard a commotion and hurried to the hall.

Chloe was outside her door, squealing, “Oh, my god, oh, my god!  Grandma just freaked me out!”

“Who’s that?  Who’s that?” Mother was hollering.

They were both talking at the same time.  “I was almost asleep when the door creaked open and Grandma stuck her head in my door…”

“Who is it?!” Mother was saying.

Chloe went on, “…and started coming in, and I didn’t know who it was, like a scary movie or something, and I screamed, and she screamed…”

I started laughing. “Just like ET!”   Jerry and Chloe were laughing, too.  Skipper was hopping around all four of us, jammed there in the dark hallway.

“Who’s that?!  Who IS that?” Mother was fussing.

“It’s Chloe.  It’s just Chloe,” I said.  “You all scared each other.”

“It’s me, Grandma,” Chloe was saying.  “You scared me, and I scared you!”

Chloe started her story again.  I started leading Mother to her chair in the living room.  She was fighting me even as I urged her teeny steps that way.

         

She used to always tell me how she drank a cup of hot milk when she couldn’t go to sleep.  I put a cup in the microwave.  She held out her arms while Jerry wrapped her OU snuggie around her shoulders.

“Remember when you were little?” I asked her, bringing in the cup of warm milk.  “Your daddy used to take you with him when he milked the cows.  He would always squirt some milk right in the cat’s mouth, and he would fill your tin cup up with hot milk.”

“Who?  Who?” she said.  She calmed down as she sipped the milk.  I decided to try a whole Xanax (1 mg.) this time. 

         

“What’s this for?” she asked me.

         

“To help you sleep, like the milk.”  I held it out to her.

         

She dropped the pill on her OU snuggie.  Jerry and I both started searching for the tiny white pill, running our hands over her belly, on the carpet under her chair.

         

“Well, she’s got plenty more,” Jerry said.

         

“It’s the dog I’m worried about—eating it off the floor.”

         

I got her another Xanax, and she swallowed it with the warm milk.  We left her there watching OSU until her head fell back and her jaw fell down. 

         

I woke her up, took off her nose hose, told her to stand up.  The other Xanax tumbled to the floor. 

“Oh, no,” Jerry cried.

“What happened?”

         

“Just what you said would!”  He was sticking his hand inside Skipper’s mouth, but the pill was already dissolving.

         

Jerry led Mother back to her bed and tucked her in.  “I love you, Dorothy,” I heard him say.

         

“OK.  OK.”

         

We watched Skipper until we went to bed.  He seemed just the same.  Now we know, anxiety medicine is not effective on 15-pound dogs.