What I Wouldn't Give for a Rat's Patootie

["Let Inga Tell You", La Jolla Light, published July 26, 2012]  © 2012

If you’ve noticed you have fewer rats at your place this year, it’s because they all moved to my house.  In the several decades I’ve lived here, there are years when we don’t see even one, and others, like this year, when they’re making their pestilent presence really obvious. 

Unfortunately (at least as far as the rodential population is concerned), we have a prolific orange tree, a rat’s food of choice.  Walking outside in the morning, our brick walkway was littered with hollowed out orange rinds, the remnants of the previous night’s rat-chanalia.   And this, by the way, is one of my biggest issues with them:  how hard would it be to just roll the rinds into the bushes and let them quietly biodegrade?  I’m not an unreasonable person. 

Eating dinner on our patio in the evening, Olof and I watched the rats scurrying back and forth along the top of our six-foot wrought-iron pool fence and escaping into the orange tree.  At one point, it occurred to us that it could actually be the same three rats running around in an endless circle just to annoy us while their buddies filmed it for rat reality TV. 

But this is our outdoor entertaining season.  You’re trying to have a classy dinner party and one of your guests says, “Um, I think I just saw a rat.”  It’s tempting to deny it with a breezy “No more wine for you!” but in the end we just had to admit defeat and turn our furry friends into a party game.  “Person who sees the most rats gets an extra dessert!”  After a couple more glasses of wine, everybody kind of got into it.  Or maybe they’re just drinking more because they can’t believe they’re at a La Jolla dinner party counting rats.

Over the years, we’ve tried pretty much every rat-ridding tactic out there, from the pricey Pest Control folks who trap them humanely and maintain that they drive the rats out to the country and let them go, to the finger-breaking steel spring traps (I’m way too much of a klutz, never mind pet danger) to the inhumane rat poison that we use now.  I admit that on the Judgment day, there will be a lot of beady-eyed creatures squeaking “Yes, that’s her!”  But I did ask them nicely to go away.

Of course, our fundamental problem is that we have a rat-topia lot, not only the orange tree but a lot of lush foliage that we’re genuinely attached to.  But this year, for the first time, we are thinking of actually removing all the oranges from the tree.  The rat invasion has gotten totally out of hand.

In a previous Bad Rat Year (a term that will never cross the lips of the La Jolla Chamber of Commerce), I was on a first name basis with the Vector Control folks who taught me how to fill the centers of 18-inch-long 4-inch diameter sections of PVC pipe with rat poison (so the neighborhood cats can’t get to it), and secret them around the yard. 

In recent years this has become problematical in itself.  We are frequently visited by tiny grandchildren and the ever-inquisitive Winston the Wonder Dog for whom contact with rat poison would be a very bad thing.  Because Winston was here for five weeks in May and early June, I didn’t get a chance to do my Spring Rat Offensive.  The rats maliciously took advantage.

A complicating factor is that Winston has recently been dropped off for another of his indeterminate visits.  (We always fear that our son and daughter-in-law have moved and left (a) Winston here and (b) no forwarding address.)  Normally I would never have rat baits out when Winston is around but this is such a crisis that we’ve just put the baited PVC pipes up higher. 

While most of the rats die their cruel deaths out of our sight, some get their ultimate revenge on us by succumbing on our patio.

My son, Henri, sent me an email the other day:  “Mom – please be careful that Winston is not eating dead rats.”

Mom to Henri:  “Believe me, I am incredibly careful that Winston is not consuming deceased rodentia. There is nothing less appetizing than bagging up dead rats before breakfast.  When you come back to get Winston (hint hint), I will give you rat duty for the weekend.” 

Meanwhile, Winston, self-appointed Vanquisher of the Furry Peril, likes to hang out near the orange tree and bark at it, scurrying rats along the pool fence.  Alas, it doesn’t actually get rid of them, but it’s very entertaining to watch.

We’d really like to be more humane in our e-rat-ication efforts but there would not be enough alcohol on the planet to make up for spending our weekends driving rats out into the country.  But what else would we do with them?  (Well, there IS that one neighbor…)  In the meantime, we’ve staged a major anti-rat campaign:  extensive pruning, more baits, carpet tack strips on top of the pool fence, removal of bird feeders. 

In order to assess our success, we have posted a chart on our refrigerator documenting the dramatically lessening numbers (yesterday none!) of hollowed-out orange rinds on the bricks each morning.  It’s all very scientific.  Fewer rinds, fewer rats.  Unless, of course, they’re hiding the rinds just to toy with us. 

We wouldn’t put it past them.

Where's the Prozac for Techno-Depression?

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published July 12, 2012]  © 2012

It’s official:  I’m suffering from Techno-Depression.  Last week I went to get my hair done and when the customer before me handed her credit card to the stylist, Angie inserted this tiny white gismo into the top of her phone, swiped the card, and had the customer sign by writing her name with her finger on the screen.

I’ve been left in the digital dust.

I’m still trying to figure out how to answer my cell phone.  My younger son does a truly vicious imitation of me using mine.  Because I use it so rarely, I never remember what you’re supposed to do when it rings. Hence I tend to randomly push buttons and yell “HELLO?  HELLO?” at it.  Henri swears that when he calls me on my phone, he automatically holds his own phone at least a foot from his ear.

But just for the record, how intuitive is it to push END when you want to START?  Huh?  Huh?  How hard would it be to label that button On/Off?  (This could be my next career: designing electronics for the technically challenged.) 

Hair stylist Angie has been my cell phone tech support for quite a while now.  It used to be that I had to drive the phone over to Radio Shack in downtown La Jolla and have the kid behind the counter erase text messages for me.  He’d always say, “Don’t you want to read them first?”  I’d reply, “Nope.  It’s always some guy name Luis who thinks I want to hook up.” 

I am perfectly fine not texting although when I got the phone, T-Mobile proceeded to send me my password via text message.  I proceeded to bury them in execrative invective by email, pointing out that just because one has a phone doesn’t mean one knows how to text.  They need to understand that some of their customers are seriously techno-impaired.

Angie insists that cell phones, even Smart Phones, are not as complicated as they look. Even her Mom has one, she says, and she’s almost SIXTY. 

“I’m surprised she can still tie her shoes,” I said drily.

“They have classes, you know,” Angie persisted.  “No,” I said, “unless you can get the app where some fifteen-year-old follows you around and works the phone for you, it’s too hard for me.”

I first began to get the feeling I was being left behind in the digital Pleistocene when one of my kids moved a few years back.  “Let me know when you get your new number,” I said.

“Mom,” he said, “nobody but you has a land line anymore.  In fact, are they still legal?”

Now my worst nightmare has become a reality:  all the electronics I already have trouble operating have been consolidated into one I can’t operate at all: a Smart Phone.    My-two-year old granddaughter watches downloaded TV shows and videos on her iPhone (her parents’ old one).  All the photos I get now have been taken by someone’s cell phone instead of their digital one.  I’m still trying to work myself into the iPod generation but Angie says she downloaded (uploaded?) all her music on to the phone too.  Ipods are so last decade, she says.

Reading the Sunday New York Times travel section, I have learned that besides using your phone as a boarding pass, one can now track one’s bags with one’s phone, and subscribe to services that will upgrade your airplane seat to a better as soon as one becomes available.  I fear I’m destined to have the worst seat on any plane, and be the last one out of the continent after the blizzard.  And definitely the only one who truly has no idea where her bags are. 

Those commercials on TV where the kid tells his fawning phone servant to call him Rock God or find places that deliver tomato soup really drive home in the most depressing way possible that I’ve outlived my technical skills. Ironically, in college, I was pretty much my dorm’s tech support.  Such was my renown with Smith-Corona electric typewriters  (the cutting edge technology of their day) that everybody came to me for help changing the ribbons.

My younger son thinks the cure for techno depression is techno skill acquisition.  Could I at least try to embrace cell phones?  If you can breeze through the New York Times crossword puzzle 365 days a year, he says, (well, 313 days really; the Monday puzzle is too easy to be worth doing), surely you can learn to operate a cell phone?

“Of course,” added Henri, “you will have to turn it on.”

“But,” I said, “I don’t want anyone to actually reach me.” 

I guess I could just ignore it when it rings and just use its other features.  Because I really do want to know where my bags are.

Bright Lights, Home Security

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published June 28, 2012]  © 2012

I think the worst part of being a single parent was the sobering thought that if I wasn’t murdered on any given night, it was only because nobody felt like it.

Of course, the feminist in me rebelled against such an attitude of fear.  I did all the standard things:    a Neighborhood Watch Program, good locks, a self-defense course for women, and even an answering machine message purportedly recorded by our Rottweiler.

Part of the reason I felt so vulnerable was that in my first year of single post-divorce parenthood, the kids and I were victims of two major crimes (well, three if you count the orthodontist).  The house was robbed while I was at work and every piece of jewelry I owned was taken.  Five months later, my purse was stolen and the perps attempted to access both my bank accounts and my home.  Neither the kids nor I felt safe anymore. 

The kids lobbied for a 9 mm Glock but I was terrified they’d blow my head off by mistake, or that in our current nervous state, we’d panic and waste the mailman.  My younger son’s allergies to animal dander precluded an actual dog. 

Ultimately I settled on the Single Woman Home Alarm System which consisted of leaving the house ablaze with lights hoping it would look like there were at least forty people in residence.   Probably for what my electric bill was over those twelve years, I might have been able to put an alarm system in.

But really, we couldn’t have afforded one.  Not the cost of the alarm system itself, which would have been a bargain compared to all those $100 fines from the San Diego gendarmes for responding to false alarms.  In fact, I think my older son, in retaliation for being a latch key kid, would have regularly set it off just for the entertainment value.  As my second husband, Olof,  always said, “Rory looks for excitement.  And finds it.”  In fact, I can see it now (and could certainly see it then):  Rory sets off the alarm and when the alarm company calls, Rory tells them he is being held captive by masked intruders.   The thrill of all those sirens!  The SWAT team!  Officers with guns drawn!  The Channel 39 news cam!  Social Services visiting Mom! 

Rory and an alarm system were an incompatible combination.  But for the record, the Bomb Squad incident really wasn’t his fault.

I never did find a solution that made me feel very secure but I did ultimately remarry.  Olof feels compelled to point out that his presence is the merest illusion of safety and did I really think he could defend me against a knife-wielding intruder?  But upon seeing the look on my face, he hastily added that he would, of course, breathe his last breath trying.  (Correct answer.)

The reason the issue of security has come up again is that there has been a rash of really brazen burglaries in our neighborhood lately, a map of which shows our thus-far untouched house right in the epicenter.   So we’ve obviously been cased – and rejected.  (A teeny part of me feels offended.)   Sounds like they know I have a 2007 computer and a pre-paid cell phone that doesn’t even have a camera.  They’ve obviously determined that the pickings are better elsewhere.  Is this, in fact, the key to burglar-proofing your house: ancient electronics?  $40 in loose cash?  Jewelry that was already pre-stolen? 

But the creepy part is:  how do they know?

A close friend says that the answer is that our house just doesn’t look like there’s anything of real value inside.  “What are they going to take?” she says.  “Your VCR?”

Neighbors have become extra vigilant in letting each other know when they’re out of town, as evidenced by this recent missive from the neighbor across the street:  “So if a moving van pulls up to the house, if they start with the garage, don't call the police until they've finished in there.”  There’s nothing like a little crime humor to take the edge off communal anxiety.

Still, the kinds of crimes that have been occurring here really scare the daylights out of me and have brought all the security issues back, even though the now-adult kids complain the place is locked up tighter than Fort Knox.  All of a sudden, I find myself leaving all the lights on again when we go out which annoys Olof beyond belief.  He just doesn’t understand the Single Woman Alarm System mentality at all. 

As we returned from a recent evening out and pulled up to the house, Olof suddenly exclaimed, “Oh my god!”

“What?  What?”  I said, panicked.

“Someone left one of the lights off!”

How Not to Buy a House in La Jolla

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published June 14, 2012]  © 2012

Let this be a cautionary tale about how not to buy a house in La Jolla.  Or anywhere, really. 

We arrived in San Diego in June of 1973 for my physician ex-husband to do his required two years of Berry Plan military duty.  Right out of medical school four years earlier, and weeks after we had married, he’d been offered the opportunity to “volunteer” two years to the military after he finished his specialty training or go to Vietnam as a general medical officer the next week.  Took us up to four seconds to decide.

Having tons of medical school loans and no actual cash, we were thrilled to learn when we arrived that we were entitled to a 100% VA home loan.  That happiness was short lived when we discovered that no realtor or bank in La Jolla (our target area; we were no dopes) would work with VA loan customers.  This was partly because the VA didn’t tend to appraise the value of the land, which in La Jolla is pretty much everything.  But just when we were finally going to look elsewhere, we saw an ad in the Sunday paper for a for-sale-by-owner home, a total fixer, and immediately signed a full price contract on it. 

Despite the crushing recession going on at the time, it was a real estate boom era.  In fact, the owners made a whopping 40% on the place in the just two years they’d owned it.  They probably couldn’t believe that these idiots (that would be us) were actually willing to pay that amount for a house with a dead lawn, green shag carpet, hard water stalactites hanging from the faucets and a master bedroom entrance through the kitchen. (Definitely lacked feng shui.)  Who cared?  We were New Yorkers; it had a palm tree and a pool.  We could have happily overlooked plutonium deposits for the palm tree alone.

Miraculously, the VA appraised the house for the full asking price so we could get our 100% financing which was pretty amazing because 100% of everyone else said, “You’re paying WHAT for that dump?  You’ll NEVER get your money out of it!” (I should note that our collective parents were among those people.)

The appraisal was the last nice thing we had to say about the VA, an institution which quickly made both us and the owners homicidal.  Within days, the owners tried to get out of the contract and take one of the over-the-asking-price cash offers that had subsequently come in.  Among the VA’s many requirements was that the house have a driveway which this one did not because of the garage conversion years before. So here’s the first rule I always tell prospective home owners:  Never put in a driveway on a house you don’t own.  But penniless and in love (the pool!), my ex and I spent several weekends digging a driveway on someone else’s house then having concrete poured.  (Nearly four decades later, just looking at that driveway makes my back hurt.) 

The owners kept telling us that if this deal fell through – which it was in danger of doing pretty much daily – they weren’t going to reimburse us for all the VA-required improvements we seemed to be adding to their home on a tragically regular basis.  At one point, for example, the VA said they couldn’t approve the loan because the underside of the eaves weren’t painted.  We spent an entire weekend on ladders while the owners were having a pool party.  One guest tried to hire us to paint his house not realizing our true roles.  (He commented that not only did we do good work but our English was excellent.)

But ultimately, two long, trying, expensive months later, the closing date came around.  We showed up with our $700 cashiers check for closing costs only to have the evil troll bank folks suddenly flip us for $1,700.   The owners had made it clear that not one more extension was going to be granted.    This was a serious crisis.  We’d barely been able to come up with the $700 since all of our spare cash had been going to improve a house that it now looked like we were never going to own.  But one of the advantages of being a doctor is that banks will lend you $1,000 pretty much on the spot.  It was finally really going to be ours!

Er, not.  It was now one p.m. on closing day and the VA loan guy suddenly realizes that the roof certification statement says “the roof should last five years” instead of “the roof WILL last five years.”  All of which was immaterial since the roof had seen its last good day at least a decade earlier judging by the rain damage on the living room wall.  We immediately called the roofer whose wife said he was out in Alpine.  We jumped in our car and actually located the guy and got him to change “should” to “will” and were back at the bank by 4:00 for Closing (Take 3).  We (and the bank) finally owned the place in all its decrepit over-priced glory.

But let me be clear:  no one should ever ever do this.  Of course, I got to buy this house again ten years later when my ex and I divorced.  But by that time, there was no way I was letting that driveway go to someone else. 

The Inexplicable Mindset of Men

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published May 31, 2012] © 2012

My expat friend Julia had to go out of town for several weeks on a family emergency and was surprised to return and find a veritable mountain of laundry waiting for her.  She’d expected laundry, of course, but commented that she had never realized that her husband Fred owned so many clothes.   Turned out that when she left, he hadn’t.  But as he ran out of clean clothes, he just kept buying more.  Weeks of more.

I laughed at this story because it’s just such a guy thing to do.  I emailed back that I thought this topic would make a great column about The Inexplicable Mindset of Men and did I have her permission to include this incident?

The response was instantaneous, even from the eight hour time difference in Paris:

“Do me a favor.  Make Fred the focus.”

Well, I would, except that Fred just has so much company.  My former husband, who had a penchant for losing things, had a similar philosophy to clothing.  Why stress about where your bathing trunks are?  Just buy twelve pairs.  I might have been more impressed by this strategy had he ever been able to find any of them. 

I put all of this under the heading of Useless Guy Tricks. The useless refers to the guy, not the tricks.

It is well documented that the sexes are doomed not to understand each other.  But as one who has lived in a male-centric household all her adult life (two husbands, two sons, male dog), weird behaviors of the male of the species has always been a topic of keen interest, if total bafflement, to me.   In some cases, one can only conclude that a wife is so much cheaper than a conservator. 

Interestingly, my second husband, Olof, has surprisingly few Useless Guy Behaviors, possibly the result of having been single for so long after his first marriage.  But like all men, he is indelibly afflicted with guy-gene-pool-embedded  Passive-Dependent Blindness:  you know, where a person of the male persuasion is standing in front of an open refrigerator with the mayonnaise dead center at eye level and says, “Do we have any mayonnaise?” 

Analogous to that is the universal male phenomenon of Ineffective Circular Search Behavior.  When men lose things, they will look in three places.  If they don’t find it, they will continue to look in those same three places in an endless pathetic futile loop.  I can only assume this is something that developed in the cave dwelling area and became hopelessly locked into male genes.  The cave wife would watch her guy circling the cave in increasing frustration looking for his club before she would step in and ask the question that became indelibly embedded in ours: “Well, where did you last see it?”  He grumbles, “How would I know?  If I knew that, I’d be able to find it!”

As she suspected, he left it outside the cave after he slew the mastodon.  (Can he ever put anything away after he finishes using it?)   She retrieves it.  But does she get thanks? Not a chance.

We recently watched our friend Jeff do the twenty-first century version of this when he was searching for a DVD he wanted to lend us.  After his third loop, his wife, Annie, went to have what she called “an Annie look” and came back with it immediately.  Annie did a quick review of the first three places Jeff had looked and found it.  A corollary of Ineffective Circular Search Behavior is that just because the husband didn’t find it there doesn’t mean it wasn’t there all along (see “mayonnaise”, above). 

But as my friend Julia discovered, go away for a few weeks and leave most men on their own, and they quickly revert back to useless guy behaviors.  Must be something in the Y (Why???????) chromosome.  They revert to eating from the Basic Four Guy Food Groups (deli takeout, pizza delivery, Mrs. Stouffers, and grilled burgers).  Despite being captains of industry, their global stewardship skills suddenly fail to extend to the operation of a washing machine that requires setting a dial to Wash and pushing a button marked Start.  The dishwasher’s operation equally becomes a subject of such complexity that its interior descends into a level of green fuzziness capable of generating new strains of penicillin.  Wife comes home to a house that looks like a refugee camp.  Which in a sense it was. 

So, Fred, you’re on warning.  Next time Julia heads out of town, you’d better up your game.  Because now the world is watching. 

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Underpants

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published May 17, 2012] © 2012


With the summer travel season upon us, a person’s thoughts just naturally turn to…underwear.

 My many friends who travel a lot have been lamenting for some time that they just can’t seem to resolve the underwear problem, especially if they’re going to be staying at a different place every night.  You wash out your dainties but depending on the climate, they never quite dry before you have to pack them up and move on.  My friend Gina says she toured Scotland and Ireland for seventeen days with a plastic baggie of clean but soggy unmentionables that were never truly dry until she got home and put them in her dryer. 

 The nightly washing ritual has a number of other downsides, not the least of which is having one’s undies draped all over one’s hotel bath, particularly if you’re staying in the $1,000 a night Scottish castle-cum-golf resort.  It just looks so, well, low class.  And might explain why those Scots don’t wear anything under their kilts.  They could just never get it to dry in that damp climate either.

 The main issue, of course, is that underwear just takes up so much room in your suitcase.  Room you’d rather have for souvenirs.  So several of my friends, including Gina, have been test driving other solutions including disposable underwear specifically meant for traveling.  Wear it once and toss it. 

Apparently, it is much more comfortable than one might imagine for cheap underwear, and thus begs the question as to why one would ever buy expensive underwear if the cheap disposable stuff is just as comfy.  But ours is not to reason why.  Another friend says that she has tried saving up all her old ratty underwear to bring with her to just throw away each night.  Yet another says she hits up the Dollar Store and buys a three-pack for $1.00.

 But here’s the problem:  while the plan is excellent, the execution has turned out to be less so.  At the moment of truth, they can’t quite bear to throw perfectly good underwear away.  Or even serviceable if elastically-challenged lingerie.  It just seems so wasteful. 

 The ratty underwear solution is even more problematic.  You’ve left a nice tip for the maid at the pricey French chateau so do you really want her to find your shabby dainties in the trash?  One can almost hear her mumbling under her breath, Merci, mais il vaut mieux peut-etre que vous gardiez votre argent pour vous offrir du linge moins fatigués.  (“Thanks, but maybe you should keep the money and buy yourself some new underwear.”)   The French can be so sarcastic.

 On a more fundamental basis, wearing ratty underwear also goes against everything that is holey, er holy.  Didn’t your mother always exhort you to wear good underwear in case you were in an accident?  Do you really want to end up in the Cap Ferrat Urgent Care in tattered u-trou?

Yet another friend says she is planning to solve the problem by buying the super-lightweight travel underwear that is guaranteed to dry within hours even in Indian monsoons.  The problem is, it is seriously expensive:  $20-$30 a pair, with men’s T-shirts running nearly $40.  Of course, if it truly dries that fast, you wouldn’t need very many pairs.  But if that monsoon thing was a bit of advertising hyperbole, you could be spending your trip feeling like a human terrarium. 

Stories of depending on a hotel laundry service are legion and usually involve sagas of a three week trip with one’s clean underwear doggedly following two days behind.  My husband, who travels a lot on business, knows well the perils of depending on a hotel laundry, especially in out-of-the-way places.  Olof tells the story of traveling to Indonesia and after a certain period of time, needing to get his laundry done.  His underwear had obviously enjoyed the pampered life of a U.S. washing machine but when he got it back from his Yogyakarta hotel, it was clear that it had undergone a far more vigorous manner of washing.  Best case, it had been beaten with rocks.  More likely, it had been subjected to a local cleansing method involving stampeding water buffalo.  Suffice to say, it was full of holes.  On the rest of his travels in Asia, he didn’t dare send his underwear out again, not only out of the sheer embarrassment that a “rich American” would have such shredded skivvies, but his wholehearted conviction that it would never survive a second experience.

 Weighing all the options, there’s really only one obvious conclusion.   If you really want to travel light, you’re just going to have to go commando.

*Remodeling Our Estate Plan

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published, May 3, 2012] © 2012

You know you’re getting older when you catch your adult kids walking around with a tape measure envisioning the remodel after you’re dead.  Actually, in our younger son’s case, he’s sort of hoping for the remodel before we’re dead.  “You could really do something with this place,” he enthuses hopefully when he and his wife and the kids and dog are down for the weekend.  He envisions at minimum a second story master suite angled to maximize what would be an unobstructable ocean view, a wrap-around front porch for waving to the neighbors in our family-friendly neighborhood, and reconverting the ill-considered 1955 garage remodel back into a garage (amen to that).   We’re very clear that his fantasies include a remodel to his specifications on our dime.

We couldn’t agree more that this tiny house on a prime lot could be a morphed into a really fantastic place.  It’s had a lot of interior upgrades over time but it is still the original 1947 footprint.  Its 1600 square feet (including the converted garage) felt enormous when my ex and I bought it in 1973, much smaller when we added two kids, positively palatial when the kids departed, and now totally sardine-ish when both kids and families show up.  We think it will make a wonderful remodel for someone.  But we’re not those someones. 

I’ll confess that a part of me has always regretted that the timing was never right for that view remodel (divorce, college bills etc.).  As we’ve explained to the kids, the house, the cars, and their educations are finally paid for.  Definitely not looking for more debt, except at tax time when we realize our deduction-less tax burden singlehandedly supports several branches of state and federal government.

We’ve told our younger son that we think all of his remodel ideas are wonderful and that we will be happily looking down (or up) on them when the time comes.  He actually owns his own house in L.A. so it’s not like he and his family don’t have a nice roof over their heads.  But I think if you grow up in La Jolla, you never lose the draw to this place. 

Of course, the other way you know you’re getting old besides the kids standing on the roof with a sketch pad is you have to set up those nagging Living Will instructions.  (It’s  pretty much all down hill once you wake up on your 50^th birthday and find both an AARP card and an appointment for a routine colonoscopy in the mail.)  But one does have to decide at some point who will make decisions for one’s health care once neither you nor your spouse are able to.  Did we want to appoint our older son, the clinical social worker who runs programs for the homeless and has done hospice care?  Or should we go for the younger son who has an MBA?

In our fantasies, the social worker kid is sitting by our bedside adjusting our blankets and patiently listening to our endless repetitious stories as he quietly strokes our hands.  The MBA kid, we envision, is parked on the other side, iPod ear buds cranked up to 120 decibels to drown out the annoying stories, comforting us with one hand, and calculating the negative cash flow of long term care on his Blackberry with the other.  Next thing we know, Pffft! Someone accidentally trips over the plug and we’re buried in the back yard.

 For the record, the MBA kid does not find this story funny at all, insisting that a business degree would hardly prevent him from making compassionate decisions about our care.  And besides, he points out, there’s barely enough room in the back yard to park the two of us without disrupting the entire irrigation system.  And where’s the economy in THAT? 

Actually, said my husband, Olof, the tripping over the plug part, intentionally or not, didn’t sound half bad. Put us out of our misery.  Besides, for all we know, it was the social worker kid, driven cumulatively mad after the 500^th repetition of the infamous dead possum incident, whose foot suddenly intersected with the power cord.  And if it came right down to it, burying us in the back yard (despite being massively illegal) actually sounds kind of charming given our fondness for the place.  But one request:  when you do the remodel, can we have a spot with a view?