Come Monday...Not Much Help at Home

“Come Monday…” is a weekly series that will involve a review of (or commentary about) websites, movies, documentaries, television shows, sports, music, and whatever else may tickle my fancy at the time.  Be assured that these reviews will be generally positive, as in accordance to the Jimmy Buffett song “Come Monday.”  This is subject to change, however.  In fact, I would be most derelict in my duties to neglect going on a rant every once in a while.  For rants promote change, and change can be good—right?  Therefore, since good is generally considered as being a positive force in 99.3% of the parallel universes that I am aware of, even a rant could be considered as being something positive, and a genuine hissy-fit would be even better (so I’m told).

A couple of days after I had to go to the emergency room of one of our local hospitals last October because of the pain from a torn muscle in the back of my right thigh becoming almost unbearable, a nice lady rang the doorbell by our front door.  She identified herself as being an investigator for the Greene County Family Services Division, and she informed us that someone from the hospital had called their hotline to report the possibility of me being the victim of abuse.

Be assured that we were both shocked, but I still let out a soft chuckle to myself.  For the only abuse I had suffered happened at the hospital by the staff on duty in the emergency room at the time.

After I enjoyed that brief moment of levity, a great fear started taking ahold of my heart.  For with none of us living in our home being in good health, the thought about us being forced to become wards of the state for our own good did not seem so far-fetched.

Thankfully, that did not happen, but what I considered to be another nightmare did.  For Arlynda eagerly agreed to have an evaluator come by to see if we might qualify for help with housecleaning, home healthcare, grocery shopping and a number of other available services while visions of us trying to round up our pups after their minds had been blown by the ringing of the doorbell danced in my head.

Alas, there is very little easy about our current state of existences in this world.  For even something as simple as inviting someone into our home is a major undertaking that usually takes a day or two to recover from.

Now, my mother-in-law is not nearly as unhealthy as her daughter and me, but at 76 years of age, she has much to teach us about being cranky.  Oh, and be assured that chasing a pack of wild-eyed puppies throughout the house makes her very cranky.

Anyway, it took the evaluator a couple of weeks to show up at our front door, and she signed us up for six hours of housekeeping a month (I think), along with some home nursing care for Arlynda.  Since the available services did not include a complete physical reconstruction, I declined to sign up for any help.

Staying consistent with the apparent pattern, it took the housekeeper a couple of weeks to show up at our front door.  Much to my surprise, she turned out to be quite wonderful—both in personality and work ethic, but after completing three hours of very hard work, we never saw her again.

Around a month later, we received a phone call from another housekeeper.  She asked about when would be a good time for her to start coming by, and Arlynda told her that 1:00 pm on Fridays would work, with her planning on not making any doctor appointments on Fridays.

The next Friday, the new housekeeper showed up at 1:00 pm, and she also made my longsuffering wife very happy.  Of course, some of that may have been from me being locked in our bedroom with the pups while the housekeeper was there, but I am not sure.

No, it did not so happen to be that the new housekeeper was French.  As it turned out, she was originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, but by the time she informed us on the third visit that she was quitting [Help at Home] to go to work for the home care division of [Oxford Healthcare], it did not matter—either way.  For she had done less and less with each visit, and Arlynda was no longer happy.

Her unhappiness grew exponentially with each passing day without a phone call from Help at Home about when a new housekeeper would start coming by.  Furthermore, we had not heard a peep out of them about when the nurse might come by, and Arlynda was wanting some help with the trimming of her toenails.

Okay, I must admit that I was not helping to make the situation better.  For when Arlynda told me why she wanted the nurse to come by, I quipped that it might be better to make an appointment with a [farrier].  No, that did not help make the situation better at all.

Arlynda kept leaving messages for Help at Home when no one would actually answer their phone.  After a month had passed without hearing a word from Help at Home about either a new housekeeper or a nurse, she decided to ask Family Services if there was another provider available.  There was, and she asked for Oxford Healthcare to give her a call.  Before the call ended, the Family Services coordinator asked her to not quit receiving services from Help at Home until arrangements could be made with Oxford.

So we waited, and around two weeks later, a young lady showed up at our front door on a Wednesday afternoon.  She informed Arlynda that she was the new housekeeper from Help at Home and that she had been instructed to keep the 2:30 pm on Wednesdays appointment that Arlynda had made.

Needless to say, Arlynda was a bit miffed over not receiving a phone call beforehand—not to mention the fact that she had never made a new appointment time for 2:30 pm on Wednesdays, but she was happy to get the kitchen floor mopped and the carpets vacuumed again.  So, she allowed the new housekeeper to get to work after the pups were corralled.

Arlynda’s happiness only lasted an hour and a half.  For that is when the new housekeeper left without mopping the kitchen floor or vacuuming the carpets.  Moreover, she had woke up my very sickly wife to sign her time sheet, and after thinking about it some, Arlynda was fairly sure that the sweet young thing had put down that she had spent three hours cleaning our house.

By the way, the new housekeeper looked like she could have been French, but I kept that to myself.  In any event, it did not matter.  For we never saw her again.

While waiting for Help at Home to call us with information on another housekeeper, we finally received a phone call from the nurse.  Arlynda told her that she could come by the next day, and I kept my mouth shut (for a change).

The next day, the nurse arrived at the appointed time.  When Arlynda told me that the nurse had used a [Dremel] on her toenails, I could not keep silent about how impressed I was with the nurse for doing that.  Arlynda was not impressed with my comment, nor with the trimming done by the nurse.

We finally received a phone call from Help at Home a few days ago, but before that, another new housekeeper had showed up at our front door completely unannounced three times.  I was the only one at home all three times.  For Arlynda and her mother were out keeping an appointment with one of her doctors, and as gently as I could, I informed the new housekeeper of the fact that no appointment for 2:30 pm on Wednesdays had ever been made, along with imploring her to have Help at Home give us a call so that proper arrangements could be made.

On the third visit, the new housekeeper told me that she had to come by on Wednesday afternoons or face being fired for abandonment of a client, which I doubted out loud.  When I asked her to at least give us a call before just showing up at our front door unannounced, she gave the same promise to do so that she had given the two times before.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that somewhere along the way, the appointed time for a housekeeper to come by had been mysteriously changed to 10:00 am.  If I remember right, we received that bit of information in a phone call from another new housekeeper, who has yet to actually come by at any time.

No, I do not have the words to express how disappointed we were over the newest housekeeper not showing up at 10 am after making sure to be up and have the pups secured the two times that we did.  For that sort of language has been removed from my mouth by our Heavenly Father.

Much to our chagrin, we did not discover that Help at Home and Oxford Healthcare are evidently owned by the same entity until I looked up Help at Home’s website for this piece.  Not that it really matters, I suppose.  For we are have not heard a peep out of the services coordinator at Family Services, nor Oxford, about making a change since Arlynda asked about it several weeks ago.  Sigh.

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