I was preparing a drink at work yesterday, and as I was about to pour the milk into the glass, I noticed two fruit flies on the ridge of an ice cube performing something that looked like insect fornication. “EW!” I screamed in my head. (Can you scream in your head? Coming Soon: The Technicalities of Loud Thinking.) I went on a cleaning spree, and found the various sources of the fruit flies, including the rag hamper, the mop drain, and the mop heads. Do not buy coffee where I work unless I am there, reader. And here’s a hint: It’s not Barnes and Noble.

A few days ago, my grandparents got in a hand fight. My grandmother has Alzheimer’s disease and my grandfather has been forced to take care of her the past few years. He has never taken care of anyone in his life, and so we’ve all been surprised at how long he’s kept his cool. Apparently my grandmother hasn’t been eating, and on Monday night my grandfather told her that if she didn’t eat, she wouldn’t be allowed to have her glass of (reconstituted) milk before bed. She probably didn’t even remember eating or not eating dinner that night when she went to the fridge to pour herself a glass of (reconstituted) milk. He decided to hold his ground, and he reached to grab it from her. This pisses her off, and she slaps him, and being of a farmer/butcher/builder mentality, he punches her back square in the face.

I’m working on this. My grandmother is undernourished, and no one in the family is competent enough to care for her. Although they live next door to my family, my parents work long hours and can barely deal with my brother. My uncle is single, lives in a three bedroom house down the road, and cooks and cleans for himself. Yet when he found my grandmother standing in her hospital room covered in blood and shit, he simply sat in the hallway reading the paper for three hours until my mother, who is not her daughter, arrived to clean her up.

I’m working on this. She clearly can’t stay alone with my grandfather. If no one else in the family is willing or able to take her in, we’re going to have to place her in a nursing home. Bilingual and assimilated as my parents are, when it comes to getting things like this taken care of, they become incapacitated. I’m trying to get everything rolling from here in Orlando because I can't afford to travel down to Miami. I'm sending my father addresses and phone numbers for agencies that will help him choose a place, and giving him checklists and legal information that tells him what to know and what to ask. But four years ago I decided to move to another city and spend thousands of my parents’ dollars on a degree in Pretty Words, and so my help isn't always appreciated, and sometimes not particularly welcomed.

I have strange feelings for my grandparents. They’ve made it pretty clear in the past 10 years or so that I’m not the sort of grandson they were hoping for. None of us are, because we don’t live in Cuba. They’ve never been tender or involved. They’ve never been nice. And they never liked my mother. They’ve told us all that if we ever place either of them in a nursing home, we may as well pack a gun in the suitcase, because they’d rather kill themselves than be abandoned by their children. I’m working on that, too.

This isn’t a very typical entry for me, and it won’t be up very long. If anyone has any experience with this elderly thing, share it. Together, we can put a stop to geriatric boxing.