It was -5F this morning and after taking 10 minutes to dig ourselves out of a snowdrift in the front yard, I remembered this story I told a member of this forum recently.

A Day In The Life of A Parkie
It was the winter of 1999-2000 and a bitter cold one too. I had temporary custody of four grandsons aged 1.5 to 10, not too easy for someone with PD. The 1.5 year old lived with me for nearly a year when I often joked, “I am the only 55 year old man in town who carries diapers everywhere he goes and they aren’t for me.”

We were late one day getting ready for school and the temperaure was about -10F. I had just gotten out of the shower and pulled on a pair of sweatpants before going out to start the car so it would be warm when we left. Putting on a light jacket, how long can it take to start a car any way? I ran out only to find both front doors frozen shut. The only solution was to get in the backseat and slide over the font seat. Easy huh? Well maybe if you were young, in good health, and not thirty pounds overweight. Well I got in and started to slide over the seat when the draw strings to my sweatpants got stuck between the two front seats and my sweatpants were pulled down almost to my knees. Here I am, half over the seats, stuck where I couldn’t move, in subzero temperatures, still damp from the shower, with my bare behind in full view of anyone driving by. I’m not sure that the redness of my butt was caused more from the COLD or the embarrassment. My meds had not kicked in yet and the cold temperatures were causing my hands to shake so violently that I couldn’t extract the draw string from their bindings. After a little twisting and pulling I finally freed myself and got the car started and was very careful in rolling back over the seat to get out.

After dropping the kids off at school and preschool I headed for work. Upon arriving Mother Nature was calling so I made a quick pit stop at the men’s room. My hands were still shaking and the job was not as easy as you might expect. I could not find the opening to the front of my underwear. Giving a small prayer of thanks for not allowing anyone else to be in the bathroom, I bypassed the normal opening by coming up through a leg opening. I soon realized that wasn’t too smart as my shaking hands were causing a less than perfect aim. As luck would have it most hit its destination and I was wearing black slacks that day so any splattering went unseen.

After getting to my desk I relaxed, smiled to my self and thought “If you can’t laugh at the situations your PD places you in then it was finally beaten you!”