Saturday, September 4, 2010

For sale: an old man's truck and his dreams

For sale: 2006 GMC Canyon truck, one owner, under 30,000 miles, air, white, basic model …

What else should I add to the description as we search for a buyer for my dad-in-law's beloved truck? In Florida, Pepaw steered it to a relative's where he arrived uninvited day after day and fell asleep in the living room …

Once he scared a passenger, one of his daughters, so much that she scribbled all her emergency contact information in case of an accident …

Oh, and he never forgot the route to the store where he shoplifted over-the-counter sleeping pills so he could take five or six a night. A night. Yep, we found a lot of those little blue tablets in his kitchen cabinet in April when we moved him and his truck here to Illinois …

He thinks he drove the truck loaded with his basic possessions here, but his oldest son, my husband, was at the wheel every mile cross-country as I followed them in our van also filled with his belongings.

This is the truck Pepaw has accused us of stealing. This is the vehicle that he was sure was our one-way ticket to prison and his one-way ticket to freedom in Tennessee where he would be welcomed by his daddy, aunts and uncles, and siblings, and work at his daddy's service station …

What else should I include? Unfortunately, he did smoke in it, but we've gotten rid of most of the stench. However, overall he took pretty good care of it.

Pepaw loves that truck and wants nothing more in the world but to drive it to the bowling alley or to the lake for fishing … or wherever his dreams may take him. That's all this 84-year-old man craves … and to get away from all these evil people who are ruining his life and putting him through hell.

Just one more thing to add to the want ad:

Must sell to help pay cost of owner's Alzheimer's care.

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