I am not sure how this happened, how such an oversight could have taken place. I've checked all my journals, and not one of them has this story documented, so now I need to go ahead and type it out for posterity because, it's truly ABUNDANT in the craycray.
Also worth noting, this is the incident which preceded the last game of "Telephone Twattery" which put her in a telephone time out for several weeks, a few weeks later.
Picture this, March 2013. Audrey's birthday. We were all convened at her house for a party. Pretty good turn out. First indication things might not end well: Not one person stepped on or tripped over her big bloated legs and feet. I found it an odd detail, but really, just like one expects the sun to rise in the a.m., so, too, must someone, ANYONE, trip over her feet, necessitating/facilitating her theatrically shrieking in abject surprise, horror and pain.
The only attention whore to be found, surprisingly, was Audrey's life long friend Betsy, who, on or about the time I had my gastric bypass, had a lap band surgery and lost a considerable amount of weight (but still is huge). Betsy set about asking all kinds of personal questions: How much did you lose? What's your dress size now? How much did you weigh before? All of which, none of her effing business.
I suppose when she didn't get the attention she craved (I guess she expected me to comment upon her diminished heft/girth), with that, she hoisted up her blouse, and standing perhaps a scant 12 inches from the birthday cake, FLOPPED OUT HER SAGGY PANNUS to, I suppose, show off (why ELSE would someone do this?). Mind you, I've got a REKNOWN bitchy resting face, and tend to pride myself on my "flat affect" how most folks cannot tell what's on my mind most of the time. Yet, saggy deflated pannus that is birthday cake adjacent? Oh yes. Eyebrow raised, with a grimace of disgust on my face, and the words, "... and that's why we wear clothing, to hide that shit" just tumbled out of my mouth.
(Honest to God, I swear I had to have typed this out somewhere! I just cannot find it! This is so unnerving!)
Mind you, in 1998 when I was on the balls of my ass and in the throes of my divorce, at a time when I lived local to Betsey and she had a finished basement in her house, and she lived alone, she did not make herself available to me in my hour of need, so color me, at a minimum, UNINTERESTED in her and her weight loss journey.
Anyway, party over and done, no one stepped on her feet, I thought "YAY finally, a normalish gathering!" This was short lived.
1 a.m. the following a.m., Audrey needed to use the loo, so the recline and lift chair finally gets her from a seated to a standing position, only problem was the little scatter rug Audrey put in front of the chair to camouflage the abundant carpet stains, evidence that often times by the time she gets into that standing position, she pretty much just voids herself where she stands, not enough time to get to the loo.
As you might imagine, Audrey catches her foot on the scatter rug, and takes a tumble, and mercifully does not sustain any injury. However, like a turtle on its back, she cannot get enough "purchase" (as she likes to say) to get herself up off the ground. And like a fool, as many times as we have told her to make sure her cell phone and house phone are charged up and arm's length away from the chair, she is essentially stranded on the floor of her house without the means to summon help.
Then the LIGHTBULB went on, and she realized while the phones were no where's near, her laptop was, so she got on FACEBORK of all things, and from 1 a.m. until roughly 4 a.m., there she was, typing out the Facebork equivalent of "Help help, I've fallen and I can't get up" in status updates, even including, "If you see this, please call my daughter at XXXXXXXXX" putting my sister's phone number out there into the universe for all to see.
So at about 4 a.m., my brother, who was working an 11 to 7 shift, happened to be taking his meal break, and got on Facebork to catch up, so he called my sister, who sent her husband to get Audrey off the floor. Normally, he's able to do so. (Note: Audrey at last count was 400#.) He was unable. Two EMTs showed up, and the three of them were unable to get her off the floor. A local patrolman showed up, and in sum it took FOUR GROWN MEN to get her off the floor (Mind you, she probably voided herself several more times in the four hours she was stuck on the floor. THAT ALONE would have been enough to stoke my ire or stoke my pride to find a way, any way to get my own ass off the floor... not Audrey! Nope! Any attention is better than none!).
And this is the story of how or why Audrey finally has one of those Life Alert pendants. And I flat out refused to pay for it. If she's got $150 to buy an American Girl (TM) doll bed for her grand daughter and somehow can't find the cash for the $30 or $40 monthly fee (or whatever it is, really) for the Life Alert, NO. I will not subsidize stupidity.
