Return from Planet Mum

Mum was not quite herself today. A little on the strange side.

"They're telling me I have to marry the King of Spain's son, now," she said.

"Why might that be, Mum?"

"Oh, any excuse to give me my final discharge from this place!"

I was under the impression that her "final discharge" from the nursing home was the thing most dear to her heart, but evidently not at the expense of marrying someone, not even the King of Spain's son.

I thought I'd tell her that Patsy123 had returned from China. "You remember, she came to see you?" She gave me a fixed stare then looked at her watch and said,"Twenty-five past five."

"Are Stone and Abie still living with you?" she suddenly asked.

"There's no-one living with me," I said. "And who are Stone and Abie, anyway?"

"Stone's your half-brother and Abie's a black man."

"I didn't know I had a half-brother. Stone's a funny name."

She smiled her most secretive and engaging smile and said nothing.

Until...

"I thought you were driving your wife Pamela to school today?"

Before I could say again that I'm no longer married (and never to Pamela), she said,"Very active imagination."

"You have, don't you?" I said.

"Not me! The person who keeps telling me these stories!!"