Lost and Found

It has paid off handsomely to be a bitch, which is a good and bad thing. The top brass at work brought me lunch earlier in the week, literally bringing my favorite meal to my desk. How awesome is that? They transferred the best manager to my department to help me. They haven't re-thought my insubordinate behavior. I'm still embarrassed by my behavior, but heck--seems to have worked out just fine. Talk about rewarding bad behavior....

Yesterday, fate must have intervened with an incident right outside my office window (the one I crawled through last year, I might add). As I was pulling into the parking lot, I noticed someone had parked right in the the four way street in front of the building. My first thought was, "what moron would park there?" but, I quickly replaced that thought with, "man, it would suck to have your car die right there." I then noticed a very elderly man standing in the rain. He was well dressed and unfamiliar, so I knew he wasn't one of the homeless, mentally ill or prostitutes from the area. Thankfully, he didn't look like one of my clients, as it would really suck if one of them "escaped." Great Grandpa looked very, very, very confused. As dementia and confused older adults are now my specialty, I quickly surmised that this guy didn't have a clue to even come out of the rain and that he didn't know where he was--he obviously had a bad thing going on in the dementia department. I went over to him and got him to come stand under the overhang, all the time trying to figure out who he was. He was soaked to the bone, glasses now steaming up. I finally got out of him that he was looking for his barber....um, hated to tell him--no barbers around us....but, I didn't tell him that, as I didn't want him to get back into his car, which I had now learned was the one parked in the street. He most certainly thought he had legally parked. I found out Lost Leroy was 97 years old. Ninety seven! LL couldn't answer many of my questions. It was heart-breaking....

.....but how awesome is it that fate brought him to our building, to our program, where our specialty is people with dementia? He couldn't have accidentally ended up anywhere better. Fate served him well, as I almost never am in my car at that time of day and only because I was in my car did I see him. That my bus drivers just happened to be standing there at that time of day was even more miraculous. Fate is a very good thing in ol' Leroy's case.

Suffice it to say, my bus drivers and I were able to get him not to go back to his car (that was quite the feat), got the keys from him (which was a bigger feat) and kept him occupied until the police came (the biggest feat of all). He never got to the barber, but instead got a ride to the hospital. Lost Leroy was then found, as my staff figured out where he lived (a retirement community). He was most definitely not supposed to be driving; no one was quite sure how he had gotten the car. (I never figured out whose car it even was.) LLeroy's days are most limited in the retirement home--I hear the nursing home calling.

By the way, he did indeed look as if he needed a hair cut.

And so, dear blog readers, I am happy to report that I am still employed and LLeroy has been found. ...can't argue with that kind of day......