Mental Acuity

I refuse to say that horrible man’s name.

Donald Pollock

When I brought my father to the hospital –whether for a scheduled visit to his primary care physician or an unscheduled one to the emergency room, the doctor would usually ask a few mental orientation questions. Do you know where you are? Do you know what day or month or year it is? Do you know who our president is?

From 2017 on, my father gave the same response to that last question — “I refuse to say that horrible man’s name.” It made me laugh every time.

I always wondered what box they checked when he said that. In their opinion, did he know, or did he not know?

The day he couldn’t draw a clock face (another cognitive screening test) was a sad one.

But the day(s) he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) identify our president still make me smile.

Why am I telling you this story today? I don’t know. In thinking about my self-imposed assignment to write a post every day, my thoughts wandered down this rabbit trail.

In the midst of all that’s going on in our country, I still find humor in one old man’s refusal to even speak the name of our 45th president.