The Where's Jerre game

Finally!

Dad has been discharged from the hospital and admitted to a Skilled Nursing Facility in Winston-Salem. It's called Oak Summit and is apparently on the other side of town from the hospital.

I have the address if you'd like to send Dad anything, the directions if you're as unfamiliar with the area as I am, and his room number if you'd like to email me.

I'm working on getting him a phone in his room - the facility doesn't have them, which I find bizarre. My options are: get Bell Sux to run a landline in and take him a set or get him his cell. Obviously the latter is the better option but his cell is not working (another mystery ... it was working after the wreck, the highway patrol used it). I can get him a new one, but must go to a CTC store and they're all around Concord. I could use Kimberly's cell, but her family has the phone and it would need Dad's sim card which is in the phone *I* have.

*whew!*

Logistics are a bugger.

My gameplan is this: I'm going to take him a landline set as a back-up (I have, like, a dozen phones ... I'm a former telephone tech, remember? As a matter of fact, if I could sneak into their wire room, I could just punch his room line down onto an open number on the block ... Bwahahahahahah! I guess they'd notice that after awhile though, wouldn't they? Bugger.)

Where was I? Oh, anyway, I am going up there tomorrow and I plan on seeking out a CTC store and getting Dad a new phone. He wants a specific kind and his current sim card must fit in it or he'll lose his numbers.

Apparently the closest location to where I fly by on my way up is a place called Concord Mills. The CTC lady was giving me directions and said to take the Concord Mills exit and I said: "So Concord Mills is a town?" and she laughed a bit frighteningly. Concord Mills is a mall. That has it's own exit off the motorway.

Now ... I don't do malls. I hate malls. I don't like mixing with my own species. I don't shop. I never buy retail. They don't call me the ThriftyChik for nothing.

Just contemplating going into a mall makes me break out into a cold sweat. And THIS time of year? NOW? When folks are at their rabid-consumeristic (is that a word?) worst? Agggghhh!

But needs must when the devil drives.

So, assuming I'm not trampled to death by hordes of holiday shoppers, run down in the parking lot, or discovered to be a tightwad ("OMG! I ... I-it's a tightwad. TIGHTWAD! MISER! Everybody, she's not spending! She doesn't even own a credit card! Consumer blasphemy! Get your pitchforks and torches! The monster must be destroyed!") Dad will have a telephone of some sort in his room tomorrow.

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Heads up: Dad's last operation (hopefully) will be Jan 4. After that, he'll be moving southward (we're not sure where ... it's looking like the Columbia area), so if you're planning a visit after the first, double check to find out where he is.

In the meantime, visit him if you can. He needs some human contact right now to keep his mind off the neverending loop of thinking about the accident.

And if you happen to be visiting and see me slipping out of a room, small tool in hand, looking all stealthy, well, I was just ... uh ... looking for the loo. Right.