My mother-in-law, Duckie, is 90 now, and she spends a lot of time watching cable news and reading the newspaper, and since she has the mind of a healthy 30 year old — she remembers everything she sees. Everything.
This became patently clear to me a couple of weeks ago when Ryan and I went up for a weekend visit to New Jersey. The weather was beautiful, and the huge old oak trees that shade the house were lush with soft green foliage.
We were sitting on the back porch, drinking iced tea and I mentioned that it would be a great day for a cookout. Duckie’s eyes lighted up immediately and she mentioned that she had not had a good old-fashioned all-American cookout since her husband, Charles, died.
I did a fast calculation. “That was nine years ago,” I said and Duckie nodded mournfully.
“Well then let’s cook out!” I said. “Hamburgers. Hot dogs. French fries. Corn on the cob. Watermelon. Peach cobbler.” I paused. “How’s that sound?” And Duckie nodded happily.
Ryan and I went down cellar to bring up Charles’ rusty old grill which had decades’ worth of grime on it. It clearly needed to be cleaned, so Ryan went on a scavenger hunt and found and ancient can of oven cleaner and a wire-bristled grill brush and we set to work cleaning the grill.
Duckie came outside to watch. “I read on-line that oven cleaner will give you Alzheimer’s,” she said, concerned.
Ryan and I exchanged a look. “Would you rather we did not use it?” he asked.
“At my age I can’t risk it,” said Duckie.
I sighed. “No problem,” I said heartily. “I’ll just use some elbow grease.” And I started scrubbing with the wire bristled brush.
“CNN says that if a wire bristle falls off the brush it can get stuck in a piece of meat. Then if you swallow it, it can perforate your colon and you’ll die.”
“Do you not want me to use the brush?” I said through clenched teeth and Duckie said, “No.”
I counted to ten. “No problem,” I said. “I’ll just light a fire and let the grime burn off.”
Duckie shook her head violently. “I saw in the newspaper that fire won’t kill some types of bacteria,” she said, adding, “I saw on AOL that you should clean the grill with salt and lemon juice.” And she brought me several lemons and a box of salt.
Five hours later the grill was clean-ish and I was ready to start cooking. “How do you like your burger?” I asked Duckie.
“Make sure it’s well-cooked,” she said. “I saw on ‘Fox News’ that uncooked beef will give you listeria.”
“Well-done it is!” I said.
“I saw on “Dateline” that well-done meat will give you cancer,” said Duckie earnestly.
“Wine,” said Ryan. “I need wine.” And he fled.
“How about a hot dog?” I asked Duckie and she smiled, then frowned.
“Processed meat raises your stroke risk,” she said. “I saw it on the ‘Today’ show.” She then proceeded to nix the French Fries, watermelon, corn, and peach cobbler because various news shows raised the specter of heart disease, salmonella, diabetes and Parkinson’s.
By this point it was dusk and I was ready to suggest a bowl of oatmeal as a safe alternative but just then a huge mosquito flew by.
I did not know a 90 year old could run that fast, but Duckie sprinted into the house and slammed the screen door behind her. “Oh my god!” she said, breathing heavily. “Mosquitos carry Zika! I saw it on MSNBC!”