May I speak frankly?<\/p>\n
We have a elderly out-of-town\u00a0friend who comes to visit two weekends a year. He can barely walk, he has a constant wet cough, and lately he\u2019s taken up belching (we think he has an esophageal obstruction of some kind). We\u2019ve had to take him to the emergency room more than once. Lately he smells of pee, probably because he’s catheterized (we aren’t sure, and he won’t talk about it). He\u2019s nearly deaf, so when he speaks he shouts, and when he watches TV he cranks it up to the point where we (half deaf ourselves) have to leave the room.<\/p>\n
Beyond his health, he\u2019s a handful in other, perhaps less forgivable ways. He makes a mess in the guest bathroom and never cleans up. He doesn\u2019t listen to what we and others are saying; he\u2019s too busy planning what he\u2019s going to say next, which rarely\u00a0has anything to do with what the rest of us are talking about. He doesn’t shower when he’s here, slathering himself with cologne instead\u00a0(his presence lingers after he’s gone). Over the years he\u2019s broken with several friends and family members, turning his back on them and acting as if they\u2019d never existed. Inexplicably, he hasn\u2019t turned on us.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s an old friend and we make allowances. Who knows what we\u2019ll be like ten years from now? If we abandon old friends when they no longer please us, what might our younger friends do to us some day?<\/p>\n
It hit us during his most recent visit\u00a0that we\u2019ve known this man since the early 1990s, when he was in his 50s.\u00a0Comparing recollections in a private moment, we realized he was the same way then, minus the belching, odors, and mobility problems. We\u2019ve been making allowances for him all along.<\/p>\n
Should I admit we both sort of hope he\u2019ll turn his back on us some day, as he\u2019s done to others? Should I admit we\u2019re already planning excuses to fend off his next visit?<\/p>\n
Well, at least he hasn\u2019t turned teabagger on us. He\u2019s an old pinko, and we old pinkos have to stick together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
May I speak frankly? We have a elderly out-of-town\u00a0friend who comes to visit two weekends a year. He can barely walk, he has a constant wet cough, and lately he\u2019s taken up belching (we think he has an esophageal obstruction of some kind). We\u2019ve had to take him to the emergency room more than once. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16264"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16268,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16264\/revisions\/16268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}