This short film, however, is hilarious and sweet and quite wonderful.
It’s Monday night and you can afford ten minutes to be amused.
Warning: The film does contain a joke where an old man can’t remember his own grandson, so it may be offensive to some.
H/t: Maryann at Flikfilosopher
SiubhanDuinne
When my stepmother first started getting forgetful, she decided to say “farmer” whenever she couldn’t retrieve the word she wanted (“Have you seen my farmer?” “Please pass the farmer” etc.)
One night the phone rang and my stepmother answered and the woman on the other end said “Hello, this is Susan Farmer calling.” Without missing a beat, my s/m said “What’s wrong with you, don’t you know your own name?”
Shinobi
Sometimes laughter is the only way to keep from crying.
jacy
I, for one, can’t believe you find Nazis funny.
(“Whatever you do, don’t mention the war.”)
Martin
One of our closest family friends just put their father into an Alzheimers facility. He could no longer remember who his wife was and would kick her out of the house on a regular basis.
When my grandmother suffered from it, I was fortunate enough to be consistently mistaken for my dad, which was actually quite cute. She’d ask me if I was still in the navy and if I was still dating that darling girl (my mom) and would go on and on about how much she likes her and if I remembered that time she took me to Morocco in the back of a C-133. I’d play along as best as I could but she sure seemed to enjoy the journey.
Alzheimers is a rough trip. Gotta find humor where you can.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@SiubhanDuinne:
That’s wonderful.
mick
i just noticed that sullivan’s blog has been moved from “blogroll” to “mock and monitor as needed”. good.
sullivan is a shallow pest. his blog is now exactly where it should be.
SiubhanDuinne
@SPaT #5: Yeah. It’s a bitch of a disease but it still manages to offer a fair amount of merriment.
Gian
@jacy:
I still wonder how the pitch meeting for Hogan’s Heros wemt. See we have this sit-com in a Nazi POW camp…
eemom
omg. First, three days of flame wars about how we gotta tiptoe around the topic of racism with extreme caution lest we injure the tender fee fees of fat white men.
Now the Corpse of St. Ronnie, Sacred Cow.
I mean, how PeeCee is this blog gonna GET, anyway? Whatever is next?? “No white cat ass was harmed in the taking of this photo”?
Spaghetti Lee
@eemom:
I think it is more likely that the white cat ass will be doing the harming.
jacy
@eemom:
I’m shocked that no one has yet complained that the word “retard” was mentioned in the film. The fainting couches must all be full from earlier in the day.
(I will say, Sarah, if you’ve gotten Church Lady to call you a “sick fuck” you must be doing something right. So full of WIN)
Sarah Proud and Tall
@jacy:
Heavens, I hadn’t even noticed that. I must take the video down immediately.
suzanne
O/T, but I am feeling like the best mom on Earth tonight. My husband and I were talking about different ancient cultures with the seven-year-old at dinner tonight, and we described a ziggurat to her. She asked, “Does it look like the hats in the Devo video?”
LMAO. Why, yes, yes it does.
Martin
@Sarah Proud and Tall: You’d be a retard to do so.
eemom
hell, my sister has been calling me a retard since we were 10 and 14 years old, respectively. (Now that we’re in our 40s she has shortened it to ‘tard, at least when the kids are around.) And look how I turned out!
tkogrumpy
Alzheimers can be funny and it can be tragic. my brother died in his bed of a ruptured aneurism. His wife who had alzheimers had no clue what was going on and he had been dead for four days before a friend came over to check on them and found her wandering around and a bad smell coming from the bedroom.
Studly Pantload, now with enhanced schmuckosity
@suzanne:
Capitol anecdote! (Kewl vid, too, even all these years later.)
Sarah Proud and Tall
@tkogrumpy:
Absolutely. Alzheimer’s and every other tragic disease are horrific.
I just don’t accept that there cannot be humor in tragedy or horror in comedy, particularly if it involves a demented Ronald Reagan singing “I’m the Batman”.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Sarah Proud and Tall:
i think ronnie reagan’s defense in the iran-contra affair earned the nation the right to laugh at his dementia. i say this knowing full well, that is almost puts me in agreement with eemom(is your sister single, perchance? she sounds hot.)
also.too, there are funny aspects of alzheimers, my grandmother’s was such, that the last discussion most of us recall having with her, before she stopped remembering her grandchildren, then children, etc, basically was her asking, or pleading with us to go shoot george bush(43).
then with all sincerity saying she would do it herself, but that she doesn’t get around as well as she used to. it was the only time any of us remember her ever admitting to being, or feeling old. that and the fact she wasn’t particularly ever known to approve of, or advocate violence…and again, everyone got the same schtick.
Ruckus
@Sarah Proud and Tall:
I found no humor in my dad’s case at the time but I do recall a story that he told of his cow that he raised when he was about 10. My mom filled us in that he lived in an apartment in Hollywood when he was 10 and that he had never had a cow. At any age. And no I don’t think it was any kind of metaphor.
Yutsano
@Sarah Proud and Tall: My father has declared he wants to develop Alzheimer’s in his old age. He has a logical reasoning (somewhat) behind this: he will forget all the books he’s ever read, and therefore can go back and enjoy them again. I don’t have the heart to tell him that’s not how it works.
opie jeanne
@Martin: My grandmother mistook my husband for a younger version of my dad. They don’t look alike, but it was sweet.
My mother’s Alzheimers was sometimes amusing, especially the time she locked herself in the bathroom and when my dad tried to get her out she yelled at him,”Go away or I’ll call the Health Department on you!” He told her who he was and she said, “No you’re not. You’re that floorwalker and you just want to be rude to me.” They had been watching ‘Are You Being Served”. She thought he was Captain Peacock.
opie jeanne
@SiubhanDuinne: you have to laugh sometimes or you’ll just cry all the time.
Yutsano
@opie jeanne: It’s wrong and I know I’m going to Hades for it, but I LOLed.
opie jeanne
@Gian: I think someone had read one of the Colditz Castle books, which were very real and still very entertaining, not to mention “The Wooden Horse” which wasn’t funny but was enthralling.
Colonel Schultz, though, he was borrowed from Stalag 15 (I think that was the one). Not a very nice man in that one.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@opie jeanne:
Ha!
opie jeanne
@Yutsano: I did too. Dad was not amused until later.
The first time Mom didn’t recognize me was when I met her and Dad at her doctor’s office in 2001. She made a comment to me that I thought was one of her jokes; she asked me how long I had worked there when I held the door open for her.
Inside the office I sat with her while Dad looked for a parking spot, and she turned to me again and asked how long I had worked there. I said, “Mom, I’m Jeanne. Your daughter.” Without missing a beat she said, “Of course you are.” Then she turned to one of the other patients and introduced me, saying, “Have you met my daughter?”
It shook me a little at first, but then I decided it was pretty funny in a way, especially the way she covered her mistake.
opie jeanne
Good night, gentle people. I being to fear I may have Early Onset Alzheimers at age 61. Sir Terry and I will have something to talk about at the upcoming NADWCON in Madison this July.
In the meantime, I think I need to establish a baseline of personal nuttiness for myself with my doctor pretty soon, so that there will be something to measure in a few years.
Cliff
What Shinobi said in comment 2.
What if I’m laughing at Alzheimer’s because it terrifies me? (And also because Ronald Reagan was an asshole, but still.)
John Weiss
Oh, Sarah Proud and Tall, thanks for the laugh.
Gods know I needed one.
Hungry Joe
Somebody — I think it was Martin Amis — pointed out that you can get laughs from lampooning Hitler (“The Producers,” et al), but nothing, NOTHING about Stalin is or can be made funny. And a friend who grew up in Eastern Europe told me that while Hitler may be the greater mass murderer of the two, Stalin was directly responsible for more individual deaths, as in, “Take so-and-so out and shoot him.” Interesting, no?