Really?

While I was in my hometown for my high school reunion we stayed at my parents' house. Saturday afternoon before the big festivities I decided I needed some, ahem, foundation items to help "lock and load" everything in my dress, so my mom and I hustled off to Macy's. Naturally this took longer than expected, so I was running late (big surprise). As soon as I got back home I zipped into the guest bedroom to grab my dress from the closet. Mentally I was already three steps beyond getting my dress and in a very distracted way I whipped open the half-closed door to find my father sitting in the closet playing his hand-held Yahtzee game. Yes, you read that correctly. My 68 year old father was sitting in the closet playing Yahtzee.

I gasped and said, "um, I came to get my dress???" Dad told me MD had taken it downstairs already and then he started pull the door closed a bit. Now wait just a minute. At this point several things were racing through my mind--

• You just scared the dickens out of me.
• WHAT on earth are you doing??
• Has the Alzheimer's set in??--I always thought we'd have more time...
• Has mom banned you from playing your travel Yahtzee game when you're at home??
• You have clearly lost your ever loving mind.
• WTF??
• Really?
  

I took in the scene and managed to cough out something like "what are you doing?" And then in the span of those 5 seconds he went from crazy to brilliant... "I'm playing hide and seek with G." Well played, well played indeed.

Now in a normal person's world this would be the end of the story. But such is not the case in my world. Because I then went downstairs to find my 5 year old, the seeker in this game of hide and seek sitting on the couch watching TV with her brother. As soon as I said, "Aren't you supposed to be playing hide and seek with grandpa?" She clapped her hands together, said "Oh yeah!" and jumped off the couch to continue the game.

I think if I hadn't intervened they might still be playing--with one in the closet upstairs and one on the couch downstairs.