Comedy of errors

First off, I'd like to send out a huge thank you to the dynamic duo of WK and AK. They sussed out an alternate CTC store location so I wouldn't have my fragile psyche damaged attempting to traverse the Mall From Hell. (Or Hell Mall, if you prefer, which sounds like one of those cheesy horror films Evil Genius Husband adores so. Disclaimer: I have never actually been in this mall. I'm sure it's a perfectly lovely mall, but just the thought of a super-mega-giganto mall stuffed full of holiday shoppers in the throes of a collective consumer-gasm gives me the willies. So there. Hell Mall.)

Anyway, these two superheroes located a store just a few exits away that was just off the motorway. I was able to park, run in and exchange the phone in just a few minutes. Fabulous!

The telephone-for-Dad caper, alas, went south after that. Stay tuned.

So I arrived at the facility (I will be sending better directions out now that I have driven it) and it seemed nice. Pretty quiet, attractive in a superficial sort of way, but ... it was full of old people! I'm not jokin'! Old people! They were everywhere! It was creepy.

No seriously, turns out that this is an assisted living facility, a nursing home. Everyone I saw was quiet elderly, except Dad, who looked postitively fresh-faced by comparison.

He seemed to be in a fairly good mood. There were little things that irritated him: his clock on the wall didn't work (Mr B had given me a heads-up on this one so I brought him one), the telly remote didn't control the right telly (we hatched a plot to actually switch the televisions. If some of you blokes go up there, do that for him.), and the nurses were pretty damned slow in responding to his button (I mentioned this to the floor nurse and she looked at me as if I'd just said something in Klingon. Perhaps I'll try that next time: "Baktag, P'tahk!")

But all in all he seemed fairly content, considering.

Eager to help his stay a bit easier, I whipped out his shiny new cell phone. Ahhh, this will make life better, a bit of contact with the outside world ...

Wrong.

Seems the cell phone I've had all this time is NOT Dad's cell. It's Kimberly's. This explains how the highway patrol were using it but it wouldn't work for me. They had his. I have hers.

So now we have to wait for Mr B's next visit (fortunately he plans on being up there tomorrow) so he can bring Dad's cell. Dad can switch his sim card out of his into the new one and he'll be set.

Being used to failure, I had a couple of contingency plans ready and produced back-up #1: Evil Genius Husband's cell. So Dad does have a 'phone right now. Just shoot me an email and I'll give you the number. Don't be starteld if you don't get him and it goes to voice mail. You're just listening to the message of an Evil Genius (Oh and don't leave a voice mail ... Dad doesn't know the password to retrieve them).

Remember, he should have his own cell back tomorrow.

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I finally got to meet another dynamic duo: DR and MR, who are dear friends of Dad and have done an incredible job of visiting him constantly and bringing him wee things that he needs. D was laid back and affable (much like Evil Genius Husband) and M was no-nonsense and razer-sharp (much like ... eh ... well, I'm no-nonsense but a tad on the dull side). At any rate i was pleased to finally meet them and disappointed (as i was when ST and JT came) that i had to scatter off so soon. When this is all over, everyone will think me the most unsociable of persons. I swear that I'm not.

Ugh. OK, I gotta try to sleep some now. Qapla!