Go on and slap me in a home

I'm apparently old enough to appreciate assisted living

I am in Texas to see my parents, because my 85 year-old mother fell and broke her femur and is in a rehab center (like for PT not to get off drugs, although I have occasionally wondered over the years if she was on something. KIDDING), and my father does not eat unless food is placed in directly under his nose. So I came here for several days to be entertaining (well within my skill set and preferences) and to cook and freeze a bunch of meals for my dad (not).

Evangelicals love to talk about “spiritual gifts,” which honestly is not much of a biblical concept as far as I can tell, but neither is the Republican Party and that never stopped anyone.

Spiritual fruits are in the Bible, and everyone is supposed to have all of them, which is super hard and you don’t get to feel special. So somewhere along the way, someone invented a test you could take to figure out if God had called you to organize potlucks or get up in everyone’s business and tell them how they should be living (i.e. the gift of prophecy), and all of a sudden everyone started talking about spiritual gifts.

Not surprisingly, all evangelical women have the gift of service, and all evangelical men have the other ones. That way, the women do all the work and the men have all the power but there’s a fun and authoritative quiz behind it all so it’s science.

Well, I never had the gift of service. Somehow when I got my ovaries, the service-loving features weren’t installed. I mean, I have done a lot of service, but I wasn’t real thrilled with it nor was I particularly good at it. For one thing, I do not like small children, and I realize this makes me a terrible person, but I’m just being honest. If you are an evangelical woman, you MUST love small children, that also comes with the ovaries, and if you don’t, you have got to find a way to act like it. I also had opinions about things like spiritual gifts and patriarchal systems. But I wasn’t ever very popular in evangelicalism. People prayed for me a lot.

If I had to identify my spiritual gift, it would be The Gift of Antics. No, that’s not in the quiz, it is a thing I made up. Just like someone made up the quiz so actually, yes, I have the Gift of Antics.

The Gift of Antics derives from all the times in the Bible when God clearly pranked people (God creating humans knowing the whole time they were gonna be a disaster because he was bored; Sarah getting pregnant at age 100; God telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac before saying Just Kidding, here’s a ram; God telling the Jews not mix fabrics like some kind of ancient Anna Wintour; God having a prostitute bailing out the Israelite spies; God impregnating a virgin, after he impregnated another elderly lady; Jesus writing riddles in the dirt to mess with people’s minds; Jesus being like, It is finished, then being like, Gotcha!…I could go on).

Fun meme, but just for sake of accuracy, Abraham was not *technically* a prophet. His spiritual gift was Beard Growing.

Someone with the Gift of Antics will be compelled to make weird parodies and mockumentaries and sing karaoke without anyone daring them to and talk in bizarre voices and wear bright crazy clothes and just humiliate themselves on a daily basis in case someone might find it amusing. Because if God made us to cure his boredom, well then, someone has got to take care of that.

But when your parents get elderly and need some help, the Gift of Antics doesn’t really cut it. So while I’ve been here, I’ve pretended I was a good evangelical lady and I cooked and froze a bunch of meals. And dammit I am so proud of myself because I do not have the Gift of Service and yet I found a way to serve, just like that one evangelical man at every potluck who spends an entire 5 minutes voluntarily gathering up the used paper plates while 20 ladies slave away in the church kitchen and he’s like I AM THE HANDS AND FEET OF JESUS RIGHT HERE PRAISE THE LORD.

And that was me this week, PRAISE THE LORD, and now I will show you my service in this photograph, which I also posted on every social media site. Because I am a youngest child and a feminist and this sh*t don't come naturally CAN I GET AN AMEN.

I mean, BEHOLD

I also spent many hours hanging around the nursing home trying to be charming, which is also a lot of work for a perimenopausal lady, but not nearly as much as stocking the freezer.

Now, when I was in my 20s, still believed in hell, and tried much harder than I do now to be a good person, I would do some volunteer work at a nursing home. I would look around at the old people slumped in wheelchairs or gingerly eating their applesauce while a dude played piano in the lobby, and I would think, Dear Lord, let me just die young because I don’t want to ever live here.

I don’t think I had been in a nursing home since then until this week. And I for the life of me don’t understand what I was thinking back then. To be fair, my mother is in a nice place with her own room. But my gosh, it’s like a resort up in there. These are the things I did and the amenities I observed—all for FREE!—

• I heard there was a piano concert by a young peppy guy.

• I saw another concert by a young lady who sounded just like Nora Jones, not kidding. I started crying during “Bridge Over Troubled Water” as I reflected on what a great daughter I am.

  

• Played multiple bridge games.

• Played Scrabble and won very, very big. Had a 68 point word—”queue.”

• Watched a rousing wheelchair corn hole game. True, I did lose money in the betting market but how was I supposed to know how close they would let Edna get due to her macular degeneration. Ya gotta warn folks.

• Saw animals the zoo people brought in to show off. INCLUDING AN OWL. Those things are cool, I don’t care what kind of wildlife exposure you’ve had.

• Someone also brought in dogs, which I missed and am really sad about that. But there were dogs.

• Went to a church service during which I got to sit in a massive easy chair AND NO ONE TOLD ME TO STAND UP TO SING. I mean.

• Drank all the free coffee I wanted. Which was a lot because it was not terribly effective.

• Got all the perfectly crushed ice that I wanted—you know the kind that is like slushy consistency and you chew it up and it’s just the most satisfying thing. CRUSHED ICE.

  

• I got to pee in a potty so high, I barely had to engage any of my posterior chain.

• Now, I did not eat my meals there, but I did observe the meal situation, and there was dessert every time and people who cooked it for you and cleaned up all up after. I MEAN, PURE GOLD.

• I also did not get my hair or toes done, but my mother did, just right upstairs.

• Also, there is free internet and a TV in the room. There is also a special recliner that helps you stand up like some kind of magician chair.

• She also got her physical therapy every day=free personal trainer.

• I didn’t experience the entire week of activities but I heard there was gonna be arts and crafts, a classic movie showing (WITH BUTTERED POPCORN), a pizza party with contests and prizes. Also, THERE IS A BOOK CLUB. I mean, how are you supposed to even know you’re still alive and not already in heaven?

Now, I will say, there was going to be a visit from a preschool class later this week, and that would be my cue to check on out of there and go home. I’m not sure why it is assumed that small children get less annoying the more elderly one gets. I suppose it helps to not hear well. I guess I’ll find out one day.

But other than that, seriously friends, what kind of a Disneyland is this place. I’m telling you right now, when my kids start threatening to slap me in a home, I’m gonna call their damn bluff.