September was a blur.  However, one story I have not yet shared happened as we were working toward finding treatment plans for my Dad. When I arrive one morning my Mom is angry. Apparently, she tells me, someone took all of her clean underwear!

She tells me that she had hand-washed her underwear and it was hanging in the bathroom. I ask my Mom if she put her white granny-panties over white towels to dry and maybe the cleaning staff didn’t notice?  “No, some jerk took all my clean underwear.”  I giggle and ask my Mom if she’s ever been the victim of a panty raid before. Without waiting for an answer I continue to remark that I’ve never been a victim, and I actually lived in a Sorority house in college for a few years. She softens a bit and we start to discuss when to go to the store to buy her more underwear.

The hard part is that they don’t make (or we have been unable to find) the type of underwear she likes. I’ve been to many stores and looked online. We are looking for the classic “6 inches above your belly button” panties in all white cotton.  Today, we find some at the post exchange. I’m pleased we could find a pair, but my Mom resists, “They are $5.00 a pair!” Since she doesn’t have ANY, I get her to agree to buy two pairs in her size which is all they had in the store.

The next day, my Sister arrives and tells me that she found 5 pairs of dirty underwear under the mattress of my parents bed. We will never know what happened, but I do know that hiding things under the mattress is a recent habit of my Mom’s and with all the commotion, it didn’t even dawn on me to look. It does make me feel a little better about the crowd that shares her hall in Assisted Living. Tickled.