I visit my parents and wake up in my childhood bedroom. I walk into the den. Dad, who has been awake for at least two hours, asks me, "Ok, what's next?" I get coffee. "Are you getting coffee?" This is soon followed with, "Are you about done drinking coffee? Are you reading the newspaper?" No more than 45 seconds pass before he asks for a status update. He wants to know what he should be doing ("What you're doing does not concern me, does it? You don't need me for that, do you?"). He follows me around.
He often wants me to stop doing what I am doing so that I will do something else. If he appears to be waiting for me to move, I will move; but when I move, he becomes suspicious of what I am doing and wants me to stop. "Don't worry with that. Get back to whatever you were doing. Ok, go!"
He is worse the next time I visit. He confuses his words and thoughts: "Did you make dinner sweet sixteen?" "Do you use your middle name today?" "In a few minutes, you'll have to take off your blouse. You're way behind."
He becomes disoriented and wants to undress in the middle of the day. Clothes are a fixation for him now. He fingers his shirt buttons and belt throughout the day. He sees you with a soda can; after each sip, he asks, "Are you done with that?" He wants to throw it away. He badgers me until I finish a bottle of water, and then, when mom opens a can of soda, he spits, "Goddammit! We don't have time for that!"
He checks the garage door. He pulls the window shades. He sits in every seat in the room, moving from here to there, sitting in three different seats within 15 minutes.
