Does anyone on this Aging Care have any funny stories to tell? I think laughter is great medicine. We might make one person feel some joy.

My Mom had Dementia. I had her in her bathroom. When she looked into the mirror she said OMG! Guess she couldn't believe that old woman was her.

That is funny, JoAnn. How is your mother doing?

My Dad was in the hospital and he was a fall risk. So when Dad was placed in the hospital recliner, the nurses had first placed an alarm that would sound if Dad tried to get up.

Well, Dad would raise up on recliner enough to get the alarm to sound, then announce "darn beans".

My father was telling me about living in assisted living. He was beside himself because “ they expect you to change your clothes EVERY day”.

Friday i I took him out. I mentioned that the previous day would have been his mother’s 115 th Birthday. He asked me if she still alive.

My Dad is 94 and has advanced dementia. He hasn't been able to walk or really do anything to care for himself for over 2 years. Last week a visiting nurse came to the house. Without a second's hesitation he asked her if he could make her some lunch or get her a snack! I was very tempted to say Yes , Dad, go make her something to eat!! So funny!

My MIL was in hospice in her home (stage 4 colorectal/breast cancer, rapid aggressive progression). My husband and I decided to take our 15 year old autistic/ID son to see her on his birthday, as we knew there wasn't much time left and he was close with her. While visiting, she asked for a refresher on her water, so we sent son to get it for her.

a side note..my hubby is really picky about water, as in he doesn't drink tap water and didn't want my MIL to be drinking tap water.

My son, never understanding this thing about different waters, brought her back the glass. Hubby speaks up "did that come from the bottle in the fridge or the faucet?" Son goes "Faucet". Hubby gets all annoyed, takes the glass to put the 'proper' water in it.

MIL speaks up (like always) "It's fine Dan! Little tap water isn't going to kill me!" Then she looked up at me, laughing so hard she could barely breathe.."guess it doesn't matter now does it?" And continued to laugh for a few minutes. Even got my son to laugh pretty hard, which doesn't happen often. She didn't let her present depressing circumstances dim her sense of humor! She passed exactly a week later. But that was the last big laugh I had with her!

Too funny!

My mother is so hard of hearing and refuses to get a hearing aid. So we are constantly having trouble communicating. Here are a few misscomms.
Talking about the stars.
Me: I heard Mercury is in retrograde.
Mom: I don't even drink Gatorade!
Talking about me getting laid off.
Me: I'm filing for unemployment.
Mom: Oh, you're on the toilet?

I have another crazy story. It was around Christmas time and my niece was in the holiday musical. My family and I all attended the school production. It was so relaxing to just sit and enjoy the music. When I first arrived at the school I asked for handicapped seating because my mother was in a w/c. They told me she would be ok in the front. I confirmed that it would safe for my mother. Well half way through the show a 6 feet animated reindeer with huge hooves jumped in front of my mother and slipped under her wheelchair. He could not get his hooves out from under the w/c. The show stopped for approximately 20 minutes and all eyes were on us. I could not control my laughter nor could the rest of the family. The more he tried to get out the more we laughed. A lady in back of me asked if mother was ok and I said yes . She seemed irritated that we were laughing. I think she was worried about my mother. The boy cried after the show and he came up to my mother to see if she was ok On the way home we sang "Mama got run over by a reindeer". That night her back hurt because of the boy slipped under my mother's w/c so I took her to the ER for an x-ray. The doctors and nurses laughed the whole time, at this point I felt bad for laughing. They did not know what to write in the notes. I told them to write exactly what happened. She was run over by an animated reindeer. She did not have an injury just some aches and pains for a few day. I called the superintendents office and complained and told them they should have a handicapped section. The next day they went full force and made a handicapped section. I was happy they did something right away. The superintendent send flowers to the wrong address my nieces mother but the thought was there.{ she did not know what to do with them Hello! I went out and bought my mother some pretty flowers after that. We still talk about that day around the holidays.

My sister and I were getting my dads new room at the assisted living ready for him to move in. He was about 91 at the time. After 2 days of solid work hanging curtains and pictures and moving in all his furniture and making sure he had all the little necessities of life I asked him if he needed anything else in his shower and his reply? "yes, a tall blond!" Things never change!

At the age of 92, my Dad was really not there any more. He had to wear depends and get help changing them a couple times a day. I think he could hear, but the responses were almost always nasty and obviously confused.

so..he got a summons to the State Grand Jury. I tried to explain on the phone, but was told he would have to serve!!

ok. So about a month before the date he was to report, I sent a letter to the clerk of the jury.... I explained that they would need someone to change his diaper a few times a day...and maybe poke him to keep him awake. Since he cannot walk, what time would the court have someone with a wheelchair to meet us at the courthouse door, and then wheel him around as he might need?

Got it a letter within a few days...excused from jury duty.

was it the dirty diapers or him sleeping in the jury box that convinced them?

I always knew when Dad really needed a haircut.... he would start saying his hair was looking like Dagwood's.

I was visiting my mom at her SNF. It was lunch time and she was always trying to share her food or drink with me. This one time she said that there’s iced tea, juice, coffee, but no booze. I happened to look up and the male nurse and I started laughing. I said maybe that should be looked into. My mom wasn’t a drinker, so why she said there’s no booze puzzled me.

Mom, who has dementia, and has had 3 husbands, last of which was Bill who died in 2016, comes out with an old men's suit from her closet. She asks me if I think my husband would want it (Ha! It's from the 70's and way too small!) I said I don't think so, but thanks, Mom, where did you get that suit? She says "it was Bill's" I said, I don't think so, Mom, she says "I know it is, I buried him in it!"

Umm....how'd you get that suit back? Even she had to laugh!!!

My step mother on the phone. It is Mothers day, me "Are you going to the dinner celebration"? She reply's "I don't know, it is raining real hard, and someone stole my umbrella"! Well, the celebration is in the dining room of the home she lives in, all under one roof, ok then. She then calls me 1/2 hour later and asks me to pick her up and drive her to the celebration, right, I only live 2,500 miles away, I proceed to tell her that, she asks me when I moved. Hello, is this the party to whom I am not talking to? Yes, might be. She calls back again, the nurse came in to dispense her drugs and was going to guide her down to the luncheon, and guess what...she found her umbrella, it was hidden on the kitchen counter, she took it with her, JIC she got caught in the rain!

My grandpa had a pat answer for anyone asking him how he was feeling, "Same as always, with my hands. "

I could write a BOOK about my MIL, her thought processes alone are beyond hilarious....and altho she is starting to really show signs of dementia, or at least, very compromised thinking, most of the things that happened, happened MANY years ago.

Once, many years ago, she pulls my sis in law and me to the side at a family dinner, Tells us in a hushed and terrified voice that we were BY NO MEANS to use pay phones, no matter where or why we needed them. We asked her why and she blushes brilliant red and says "Phone sex. It's disgusting. You don't know what people are doing with those phones". I almost fell over from laughter. Sis in law is almost crying she's so embarrassed. We had to EXPLAIN to her that people were just 'talking' and she said "they don't... you know....'insert' the phones anywhere then?"

This happened 20 years ago and we still laugh ourselves silly.

I’ve shared this before but it’s good.

my mom died last year but on her first day in assisted living after a bad fall and hospital stay I transferred her directly into AL. I took dad over that evening to have dinner with her in the fancy dining room. Mom was very wide eyed checking out all the residents. As I was shoving her in her wheelchair back to her room after dinner she said THERES NOBODY BUT OLD PEOPLE IN HERE! I told her that seemed like the kettle calling the pot black. She thought for a bit...YA KNOW, THAT OCCURRED TO ME JUST AS THAT WAS COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH.

A couple years before after a hip replacement we were moving mom into this grim rehab center. We get to her room, there’s a roommate, a poor old lady moaning constantly HEP ME! HEP ME! (Hillbilly for HELP ME)

finally a nurse comes into to get mom checked in and was going through all the basic alertness questions, what’s your name, do you know where you are etc. Mom got them all right very promptly then asked me WHY IS SHE ASKING ME ALL THESE QUESTIONS? I jokingly told her it was a test. If she missed any there’d kick her out. Next question....Mrs ...Do you know who the president is? Mom...YEAH. FDR
Alas, she had to stay.

My mother had a WONDERFUL sense of humor.
She became engaged right after her HS graduation, and was engaged for 14 years, until her brothers, who HATED her fiancée, introduced her to my dad.
They were married 6 weeks later.
By the time she entered a local SNF, she’d lived through a stroke and a badly broken hip.
Still tiny and CUTE, she was asked one day some question about her husband.
She responded “Which one?”
When I got home from work I found a message on my answering machine to stop at the office before going in to see her, which was a little out of the ordinary, but I dutiful tapped on the office door and was ushered in.
”ANN, we’re going to need to update your mom’s information. We realized today that we had no information about one of her husbands”.
I’m rarely speechless, but that was some conversation stopper.

I was in the hospital having a procedure done, my husband was sitting in the cubbyhole waiting for them to take me to the OR, here comes the surgical nurse and she is going over what is going to happen, she looks at my husband and asks, and you are the husband? I sit up and ask her what she means, doesn't he work for the hospital?!? She instantly freaks out, we start laughing and she gets it right away. We heard her telling everyone that she was had and it gave them all a good laugh. We even heard some snorting, which made us laugh more.

It was some of the best care I ever received after the practical opportune joke.

My 86 year old mom with stage 5-6 dementia lives with me. She not only gets confused all the time about where she is, she also thinks I have more than one home. Once I tried to tell her that I'm single and I can only afford one mortgage and I can barely afford it at that. She replied, "You know, if you sold that other house, you could probably just pay this house off. Did you ever think of that?" I gave up at that point and said, "OK, can you point this house out to me and as soon as I find out where this house is I'm gonna sell it." She looked at me for a few moments and then said in her wisest voice, "I think you need to keep better track of your houses. That's your main problem right there." Thanks Mom, you're right. I need to keep better track of my houses. Story of my life. :)

It's been a while since this happened but it still makes me laugh.

I was in line at the grocery store and the cashier was a young man with gauges (the rings in their ears that stretch out their earlobes). A very sweet looking, elderly woman joined the line behind me.

When she saw the young man's ears, she commented, "Good grief. The holes in your earlobes are bigger than my vagina."

I couldn't help but laugh long and hard. That poor man probably couldn't look at his ears again without thinking of that woman!

Oh, gosh, my poor MIL. I have hundreds of stories. Now she's 90 she isn't near as funny, but we love some of these gems.

One day she called me out of the blue and asked where she could get D-Con in 25 lb bags. I didn't know and didn't think it came in bags that big..so I asked "Why do you need so much?" She replied "I was outside and I saw a mouse, he looked at my back door like he wanted to come in. I can't bear that, I can't bear and animal to be in my house. I want to sprinkle D-Con around the perimeter of the house to scare him away". After I stopped gasping for air at this idea--I told her that D-Con actually attracts animals to it and she'd kill off the neighborhood cats along with squirrels, etc. She said "But he looks cold and I think he wants to come in. Won't the D-CON repel him?" No, Mom, it won't it's not Kryptonite. He's not Superman. Mice don't 'want' anything, really.

I could tell she DID NOT believe me so she went down the list and called everyone in the family with the same question.

I don’t have stories to tell. But I want to bookmark this thread. My mother didn’t “do” social media, but courtesy of my sister, she had a faithful Facebook following based on the things she’d said when she and my sister spent time (usually watching the Mets play on TV.) My sister would affectionately post them and mom was a hoot. I do remember when she and I were talking about the Pope saying that condoms might be okay. I figured she’d take the traditional RC Church hard line on contraceptives, but she angrily said, “NOW he says it! When I think of all the marriages that could have been saved if they didn’t have so many damn kids!” Hopefully she wasn’t referring to HER damn kids. ;)
Mom was a devout Catholic, but she always had her own perspective. She was a good woman.

Unable to move his bowels on command, my husband asked if the commode was available 24 hours a day! He cannot transfer on his own and known for keeping me up all hours of the night for one reason or another. It was already about 10 pm, and I reassured him that yes, the commode was always available. I should have said, yes, but the attendant might not be!

This was a few years ago. My Dad had to stop driving due to age related issues. My Mom had quit driving many years prior. My folks were in their 90's. One day Dad called me on the phone and said he had a great idea. This is how the conversation went:

Dad: I have a great idea where you don't need to drive us anymore.

Me thinking maybe they will call a taxi so I asked: What do you plan to do?

Dad: I will have your Mom drive.

Me: But Dad, Mom is legally blind [she had macular degeneration]

Dad: No problem, I will just tell her when to stop, when to go, when to turn.

Me: But Dad, Mom can't hear anymore.

[there was silence on the other end of the phone]

Dad: Oh

not thinking, i asked my mother with dementia where she got the pretty necklace.
She had no idea. then she said the best thing about losing her mind was that every day was full of nice surprises.

Several times when I would take dad to doctor's appointments the check in nurse would not be aware of dad's dementia and ask his age. He would always low ball it by about 20-30 years, seriously answering "I'm 60". Being he was actually 90 the nurse would laugh and answer (thinking dad was joking) "well you look good for 60 but (looking down at his patient information) it says here you are closer to 90". Dad laughs (thinking the nurse was now joking) would answer something like "90! Well I can't imagine ever being that old". Me (sits in corner rolling my eyes).

My dad has told us for years that when he was a child his family was so poor that all he got for Christmas was a pair of overalls with a hole cut in the pocket, because that way he got something to wear and something to play with 🤭🤣😜

In early stages of my mom's Alzheimer's there was a flood in our area. Her basement got flooded. I assured her I had someone coming to restore the basement, but she would forget. One day she went down and saw the wet carpet and walls and called the city to turn off her water, thinking there was a leak somewhere. They questioned her repeatedly, but finally turned off her water. Then she went to get a drink of water and there was no water, so she called the police. That got straighened out, but the next day she called a plumber in a city 2 hours away from us. He came to only find out the problem was the flood, not plumbing. I had to lock her out of the basement because after that she went door to door at the neighbors' asking each of them if they knew a good plumber.

That was only the beginning of her efforts to fix things.