Angels in Arms: Maneuvering an i-Phone in Throes of Dementia
By Greg O’Brien
Author Greg O’Brien, as a young Altar Boy, serving High Mass on Easter Sunday. Source: O'Brien family photo
I’m not a bad guy. I was an Altar Boy at Resurrection Catholic Church in Rye, New York, outside Manhattan in the 1950s.
Ok, growing up I perused through sticky Playboy magazines. And yes, I’ve now committed every sin a man can commit in life but murder and adultery, and I’ve been tested in both…
But I’m not a bad guy.
I was a bad guy not long in Scottsdale, Arizona, confused the day after giving a speech before 350 medical professionals from around the country about Alzheimer’s and my book about the dementia journey, On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer’s. My head that morning was in a good place.
The speech the day before was an emotional, humbling experience, though I had another Larry David moment in Scottsdale heading to the airport Sunday with Mary Catherine and son Conor. The “Warden” (aka Mary Catherine) let out too much rope, and asked me to call an Uber to the hotel to take us to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. So I punched in the specifics, noting we were going to Scottsdale Airport, a small plane, community airport…Wrong punch!
Then an Uber shows up at the hotel, and asks me if I was the “Slivinsky” party. In my out-of-body confusion, I said I was. So I yelled over to Mary Catherine and Conor to pile into the car for the ride to Scottsdale Airport; I’m in front seat, Mary Catherine and Conor in the back. Well, about two miles up the road, Mary Catherine, with the patience of a saint, finally realizes we’re heading in the wrong direction, and the Uber driver’s phone is now ringing off the hook. So the Uber driver turns the car around, not-so-diplomatically noting that I had plugged in the wrong location; he seemed pissed, and starts heading to Phoenix airport. MC and Conor are rolling their eyes! The Uber driver’s phone keeps ringing, and he finally answers. It’s Slivinsky wondering when the hell the Uber driver is going to pick him up at the hotel.
The Uber driver apologizes profusely to the man on the phone, then turns to me and says, on the lip of anger:
“You’re not Slivinsky!”
“I guess I’m not,” I replied, sheepishly.
“What the fuck?” rings a chorus from the back seat.
At this point, the driver had no choice, and is taking us to the airport. We’re late, horribly late. Then Mary Catherine’s phone rings. It’s the hotel. I’ve left my laptop, MY BRAIN, in the lobby, my proxy memory. So the Uber driver now has to take us back to the hotel to pick up the missing laptop.
Slivinsky, by the way, has grabbed another Uber, still quite upset. Mary Catherine and Conor are still yelling at me from the back seat, while I apologize profusely to the driver.
I then sat silently in the front seat.
At the airport, I gave the driver a 50 percent tip, and apologized again, and again. He told me not to worry. I told him I felt really bad, and that I deal with Alzheimer’s.
“I know, I could tell,” the driver said candidly. “It’s in my family, too, and I’m afraid that one day it will attack me. You take care…”
We hugged, manly hugs, and he drove off…
Another angel in arms…
Son Conor and my wife Mary Catherine are now calling me “Slivinsky.”