Where are my Car Keys?

After my sister gets punked by my parents she comes to stay at my house. My parents said they wanted to give up the car keys and driving, but when my sister starts to drive them everywhere they end up taking the keys and leaving her without a car or a ride.

My sister was trying to help keep them compliant with the doctor’s orders by driving them where they said they “needed” to go, and they quickly repay her by creating an emergency and leaving her in their apartment at the retirement community without any of her belongings.

The next morning, after I picked my sister up to come stay at my house overnight, my mom calls looking for their car keys. Within the hour, my dad calls wondering where his car (and car keys) are – does my sister have them? Now my parent’s can’t find the car keys or the car. Do we know where they are?

My sister has no idea; it should be at their townhouse. He says he’s going to take a cab to the retirement home to pick up his car. But by the next day, when his car is at the townhouse and mom’s car is still “missing,” we later find he had driven mom’s car to the retirement community and left it there when he picked his up – probably using a second set of keys. We later learned that the set of keys that dad so solemnly handed over to my sister in front of the doctor had been mom’s set of keys, not his own.

I am trying to explain this clearly, but two homes, two cars…it’s hard to keep track of them much less for my parents to manage two places and two cars.

My siblings and I will often discuss how tiring this must be. They spend hours each day looking for my mom’s calendar, their checkbook, car keys and their cars. We would love to help them find more meaningful ways to spend their time. They don’t seem interested. Noted.