Mrs. Billingsley's Appetite

 

Mrs. Billingsley has been acting funny.   How so?  Really,  I guess I would say she's made a curious turn in her behavior.  

Lately she has decided that she loves tomato sandwiches.  OK.  Can do.  How many?  Usually two.  But last night, after she ate her sandwiches,  she asked me when I was going to make dinner.  So back to the drawing board.   She decided she wanted two tomato sandwiches.  Sure.  She must have not remembered that she just ate two sandwiches.  However, yes, two more tomato sandwiches coming up.   I actually felt encouraged to see her appetite.  

This morning when I went to check on her and begin the usual routine, she was awake and talking to herself.  "Where was breakfast?"  She kept telling some one she was hungry.  Breakfast now!  Did she imagine someone was there?  Could be.  Anyway, nothing disturbing seemed to have happened overnight.  She was probably still in dreamland.  

I brought some cottage cheese with peaches out for her.  That's about how much she eats for breakfast.  So she ate her breakfast.  But then she asked me for breakfast.  So, OK.  What would she like?  She seemed to be drawing a blank, and I suggested sardines.  Yes!  That would be great.   I brought out some sardines.  I decided to put her bib on her, and got out the bib and stood in front of her to put it on.  She leaned back as far away from me as possible for unknown Billingsley reasons.  "Please sit forward," I asked her.  Was she just being difficult?  Well, today was brain off day anyway.  

Finally there was enough of a lull in things I needed to do that I made a break for it, and went to make coffee.  When I came back with coffee, she asked me if I had eaten dinner yet.  "I haven't had coffee yet this morning," I told her.  She was already gearing up to say she wanted dinner now.  Possibly it's more about needing attention more than wanting dinner, especially when we don't usually eat dinner in the morning.  "Do you see what time it is?" I asked.  She looked at the clock but didn't answer.  I had the feeling it wasn't registering.  

Probably related somehow to the 4th of July holiday, Walmart claimed to have sold out of bread.  I had ordered four loaves to be ready for any tomato sandwich emergencies.  They only delivered one loaf.  ????   Boy, now what? I wondered.   Walmart has a truly curious mentality that they feel one customer is only allowed a certain amount of any given item.  But I'm not shopping for one person.  Well, they just don't think I need that much bread.  They have rationed a lot of other food too.  They ration the number of strawberry flavored waters they will sell me.  Why don't they do the logical thing and have the amount on hand that people want to buy?   Well, where would that end?  I was not allowed to buy two steaks once, even though there were two of us, each wanting a steak for dinner.   They act like there is a war that is causing this rationing.  Good Americans don't try to buy two steaks.  Children might need them.   They got ridiculously huffy about the steaks,  physically removing one from my cart to return to the meat department.   Whoever it is running the Walmart seems to also have dementia.  

The gas station carries bread.