HIDE AND SEEK

Ken hides and I seek.  No, it isn’t the two of us playing childhood games, it’s Ken hiding stuff.  From past experience with his father and mother (both of whom had Alzheimer’s) hiding their valuables was the normal thing to do.  Long before direct deposit was the accepted thing (or something they wanted to do) I would take Ken’s parents to the bank so they could deposit their Social Security checks themselves.  It seemed to give them great satisfaction to sign their check and make the deposit.  However, it took several hours because when the checks arrived in the mail they would hide them in a safe place.  Fortunately, their small house had few hiding places and after a while I knew where to look.  Most were hidden in the linen closet between the folded sheets.  I don’t recall that we had to look for anything else, but Ken likes to hide things he believes are valuable or attractive enough to be taken by a guest — me — so they are hidden. 

His wallet has been missing for the past five weeks.  He often hides his toothbrush, disposable razor and wrist watch.   If they are too far hidden I issue more and when the missing is recovered I just recycle , but not the watch.  There are things, though, that haven’t been found.   The large TV in the family room is without a remote control.  Whether it is in hiding or whether it was tossed out with a stack of newspapers, I don’t know.  A second remote is also gone.  That one he might have tossed in the garbage because it wouldn’t work on the big TV.  I had a wireless mouse for my computer, but went back to one with a wire because he kept hiding the portable.  “That’s an engineering tool,” he claimed when I found it and brought it back to where it belonged.

For many years our mail service was rather sparodic, arriving at various times during the day.  If he got to the mailbox before I did, Mr. Hyde wouldn’t allow me to see it, nor would he allow me to touch it.  “It’s mine, mine, mine” he would state, and when I wasn’t looking he would hide it.   Recently, the mail schedule  has been changed, now arriving between noon and 1:00.  I couldn’t be happier about that.  I slip out and collect what’s mine and what’s important and leave all the junk mail with his name on the envelope in the mailbox for him to discover and bring in the house.  He used to sit for hours reading it over and over before he would hide it.  Now he just hides it.  Another interest gone by the wayside.

Several days ago he was putting away the dishes from the dishwasher and looked bewildered as he held three of my knives.  “They go in the rack,” I reminded him, not knowing he had become Mr. Hyde.  “Sometimes,” he snarled.  “I’ve decided to put them in a better place.”  With that he turned from the kitchen and started down the hall to our bedroom.  Seeing that I was watching, he came back and waited until I busied myself with something else.  I’ve been cutting my bread with a small stake knife for nearly a week.

The only way to be thorough in my searching is to select a day and cover every square inch of a room which includes closets and drawers.   When time permits I do a thorough cleaning at the same time begining with our bedroom.  I’m sure I’ll find a variety of missing objects, hopefully my knives and perhaps a missing remote control for one of the TVs.