- Cape Rolling Out Bloomfield Road Art Trail (8/21/19)1
- Donors Pledge Almost Two Grand To Replace SEMO's Possibly Sentient ‘Gum Tree' (8/16/18)
- SEMO and The Will To (Become A Consultant) – Part 2 (6/14/18)
- SEMO and The Will To Do (You Really Want To See That Legal Notice?) – Part 1 (6/4/18)
- Judge, Jury... Trashman (6/1/18)
- Diary of Cape Girardeau Road Deconstruction (5/11/18)
- Trying To Save A Tree From City “Improvements” (4/30/18)2
Getting Rid of Grandpa Franklin
Content was added by the author Monday evening.
We had a rough weekend.
The family decided that it was finally time to get rid of Grandpa Franklin.
We all know we should respect our elders, but there comes a time and place where -- from an unemotional business standpoint -- the return on investment just isn't there.
Grandpa Franklin has had his day in the sun, looming large over all the kids through out the years, but now at 83 he's really showing his age.
First of all, he's a little shaky. We think he might have Parkinson's disease. Or it could be his hip. He's complained about it for years. He wants the family to help him pay for a new one. Have you any idea how expensive one of those titanium joints cost?
Heck, it would practically bankrupt the family to pay for all the care needed to make Grandpa Franklin stable again. But a lot of the grownups are scared silly he might just collapse at anytime and crush one or two of the grandkids with him. We feel we can't take that chance.
And let's be honest, even if we replace his hip what do we have then? Same old Grandpa who's a little more stable who will probably pass on in a couple of years. It almost doesn't seem worth it.
And then there is the whole incontinence problem. Why else would he keep that box of Depends on his dresser? Yes, the family knows that Grandpa Franklin leaking is not fatal and it can be controlled. Obviously, he's doing his best with Depends, but still it's kind of embarrassing to all the grandkids.
Who wants to be known as the kid with a leaky Grandpa?
And this might sound a bit selfish, but let's just say what needs to be said:
Grandpa Franklin is just no longer cool.
The grandkids want a grandpa who knows about things like the Internet and IPods and Lady Gaga. They don't care about rotary phones and how it was like living through the Great Depression and the Cold War.
Other kids have cooler, younger Grandpas. There's Grandpa Clippard and Grandpa Schrader. They're all younger and hip. Even Grandpa Jefferson and Grandpa Blanchard, who might not be quite as cool as the others at least don't have to run around in Depends.
And remember Grandpa Schultz? Now there's a piece of work. Everyone pretty much wrote him off for dead because the "experts" said it was so and everyone believed them. But I saw him just the other day on Pacific and he was looking sharp. Even had a lady on each arm. I hope I'm that spry when I'm 95.
So as far as Grandpa Franklin is concerned, the family has decided to use the old tried and true raccoon-relocation-routine and haul him over to the first busy truck stop we can find in Southern Illinois. We will leave him at a booth sipping coffee and rambling on to himself like he tends to do while we slip off back to Cape with his wallet, of course.
We're confident that within a few hours some nice Illinois state trooper will be called in and when Grandpa starts babbling on about how "in his day, kids walked miles up hill both ways barefoot in snow to see him" that he'll be gently lead off to a nicer place that can deal with his shakiness and his incontinence.
And then the family can get a cooler Grandpa Franklin who knows about things like the Internet and Ipods.
Perhaps, our new Grandpa Franklin might even be able to explain to me what's so darn cool about Lady Gaga.
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