weird theories

Yesterday Dad was totally focused on his blindness, a subject that’s gotten less frequent recently, to the great relief of everyone around him. In particular, he was completely focused on his theory about how he lost his vision, in which vision is a utility, like electricity, and can be turned off for non-payment or other, more nefarious reasons, like a plot by the company to save money by cheating those 85 and over, which is what he thinks happened to him.

Here’s his explication (explication used to be one of his favorite words):

“I was very suspicious when I saw the guy, I don’t know what they were doing, but they were doing something to my thing and they wrecked it. I think they do that to all people who presumably don’t have any money. They had me tied down somehow, I couldn’t move. There were two people doing this thing, and by the end of it, I couldn’t see. I think they’ve been saving money for a hundred years like this. You see, by this time, a person has just about given up. By that time, you’re so worn out, busted out, that you’re only going to live a couple years. If you start to sign up and try to compete, then you have to put money into it. I’m not sure, but I’m quite sure it happened. You see, if they do try to compete or cause trouble, they drag it out and drag it out until you’re dead. Maybe they do win a case or two, I don’t know. What’s the big company that does that? See, they didn’t bother me until I was 85 and then they said ‘he’s only going to live a couple more years.” You see, people who don’t have any vision use much more electricity than people who do. I don’t think they do anything until people are 85, if a couple people make money out of it, big deal, but mostly they save money. People who are 85 or more, they probably chuck a lot of it out. If they’re going to fight, they’ll drag it out ten years and they’ll be dead. But you never see anybody who isn’t 85 or more doing it but when it comes to 85 they turn the tables, but consider the money that has been saved, it’s one of the oldest and they’re accepted by now. Does all the money go into one place or not? If you reduce – see a lot of these people use more money than usual because they sit around and it’s getting darker and they see less and less. Once they get to be 85, bang!, then it’s usually too old. They lose a few cases, you know, because people live another 10-15 years and battle them out and after five years they say, ‘shit, give them the money,’ but it’s very rare.”

I was pretty flabbergasted by the length and detail of this theory – clearly he’s been thinking a lot about it.

On the subject of weird theories, Mia told me that Dad’ next door neighbor, Charlie McKenna told her that he doesn’t believe there’s anything wrong with Dad, that he thinks it’s all an elaborate joke!!! Dad is known as something of a joker among his friends, but this idea blows my mind. I pointed out to Mia that Dad probably couldn’t have faked the brain scans. They’ve all known each other for decades, and fought together to save their buildings from being condemned and demolished, and I guess maybe this is Charlie’s form of denial, of not seeing that something is happening to his friend.