>GRAM
>Hello?
>
>ME
>Hi, Gram, it's Ben. Just called to wish you a happy birthday.
>
>GRAM
>Well, thank you, dear. Bye now.
>
>(click)

My mother has a certain tendency to be entirely convinced that whatever it is she is doing is more important than whatever reason I am calling for. So, it tends to be something quite similar to this in many cases, except that it goes "I'll call you later, bye (click)" instead. Which in all honest is rather insulting, many times. Ah, well.

>GRAMP
>(deadpan)
>Are we absolutely sure it's not syphilis?
>
>GRAM
>(shouting at him in the background)
>Leonard!
>
>GRAMP
>(still deadpan)
>Your grandmother wanted me to ask that.
>
>GRAM
>(utterly indignant)
>Leonard!!
>
>A random fond memory. She's gone now, of course, and he's fading, so
>it's nice to remember them as they were.

This elicited a rather massive *SNORK!* from me. I could easily see my own grandfather doing something similar, from what I remember of him. Unfortunately, he never really got the chance, as he suffered a rather massive stroke when I was in my early 10s. Before that, however, he had JUST the sort of humor that it would have surprised no-one if he did this.

>(Mercifully, thus far it seems Gramp has the kind of Alzheimer's where
>you still know who you are, who everyone else is, and where you are,
>but each day is filled with bemusement and repetition. I say
>mercifully because that's bad, but I would submit that it's not
>as bad as the kind where everyone is a stranger, you're trapped
>in an unfamiliar place, and everything that happens is terrifying and
>incomprehensible.

Well, the expression that comes to mind here is "plague or cholera?" I don't think I'd want cholera, but if the alternative is the bubonic plague...yeah.

>Also, more than once over the course of the past 14
>months, I have caught myself reflecting that if he had chosen a
>time to plunge headlong into dementia and lose track of everything
>that is happening outside of Old Folks' Jail, he could hardly have
>picked a better one.)

And I can only agree. You think there is some sort of temporary version I could contract, last another 3 years or so? I mean, I'm not even on the same continent, and I'd rather not have to know what's going on with all of that.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"