Sigh

The conversation I transcribed last week about conditioner was tragicomic. Its comedy needs no explanation; its tragedy lies in how it reveals dad's stubbornness and unwillingness to take in new information. He does things the way he's always done them, and believes in long debunked ideas. He and I have had this fight about other, sometimes more pressing matters. The conversation always goes the same way. Example:

A.: Dad, you can't just leave [that] outside the fridge.
Dad: Sure you can.
A.: No you can't. It will go bad.
Dad: We did that when I was growing up.
A.: Where it was colder.

Sure enough, said thing goes bad, and dad is surprised, over and over again.

This is increasingly becoming a problem as mom becomes less and less able to take care of herself and keep herself safe. In some cases, dad's inertia isn't driven so much by stubbornness as a lack of imagination or resourcefulness. He won't acknowledge the problem, let alone come up with a simple workaround. He's often negligent about little things that would quash bigger things.

Example 1: we went for a walk yesterday. It's my favorite walk--a loop around art of the river, where I used to run back in the day, in all weather, when I could be bothered--a few minutes' drive from my parents' house. There are a couple of places to park near the route, and we've taken to parking at the one nearest to us, which has stressed me out the last few times we've been there because mom is terrible at crossing the street, and it's a terrible place to cross the street. There's a light/crosswalk near there, but she insists on crossing in the middle of the block. And she won't pay attention, will stop in the middle of the street. So, on the way to the walk yesterday, I suggested that dad drive on to another spot. He didn't. I pointed out that mom is bad at crossing the street. He agreed, but a simple workaround wasn't in the cards. And this happens all the time,

Example 2: My parents have a timeshare, which is never a good idea--it was probably a wash when they actually used it, and it's nothing but a waste of money now (because they still have to pay maintenance fees). They're very difficult to get rid of, but slightly less so if you're not trying to make money off of the sale. When I first found out this was an issue a few months ago, I did some research and told dad what steps to start with. Did he do anything? Of course not. I continued to remind him, Nothing. It came up yesterday, and mom wouldn't drop it. Of course, her proposed solution is to stop paying them because we don't owe them anything. Which makes no sense whatsoever, but she just keeps saying it. And she woke up this morning saying it. And dad tries to reason with her, to explain why we just can't do that, and I just tell her to drop it because it's taken care of. But it would actually be taken care of had dad taken care of it.