I had signed him up for their "Good As Gold" club and they had awarded him a free lunch for his birthday.
For the past few years, I have taken him out for a meal and a movie for his birthday. Last year, we dined at Carey Hilliard's and saw "Tammy". (Hey, he's the one who picked it! I guess he hadn't expected the "go to rehab" message in it. I found it to be priceless!)
I had printed out the certificate a couple of weeks ago.
You see, his birthday was actually on Monday, but I had not been able to take him then.
That's because I had no way of contacting him except to ride up and down Skidaway Road in hopes of espying him.
Yesterday, I finally saw him, sitting on the side of the Chevron, with several of his buddies.
I made a "date" with him for our birthday lunch at 11:30 AM today. I even enlisted the aid of his amigos to make sure he would remember.
They were also to make sure he brought his two phones up to the site and charged them, so I could get his phone service reinstated.
I arrived early and he was there with two of the same buddies from last evening, plus one more.
He even appeared to be neat and clean!
He was also a little tipsy.
Already.
But did he have the phones with him?
Hahaha! Ha haha!!!
What a silly question! Of course he did not, not either of them, whether charged or dead.
He, nor the three with him, could recall where I was taking him, just that "sister T" was taking him out for his birthday lunch.
I guess it's good they remembered that much.
We had a really good lunch visit! As his was free, I had only to pay for mine.
(Did I get the senior discount? Not even close. LOL!)
Throughout the ninety minutes we were there, we talked of tents and phones and tents and rehab and tents and his kids and grandkids and tents and his three-day return to the hospital in mid-June for chest pain and... tents.
Have you spotted the recurring theme?
Even with the medical scare, in which he had staggered to the Chevron and had them call an ambulance, his main function today was to get me to buy him a tent.
Wouldn't he rather have a working phone so he could call for help?
Nope, he'd prefer the tent. The one he had was ripped by a tree limb during a storm, as well as having a busted zipper on the door. The mosquitoes ate him up every night.
His son, when told of his papa's preference for the tent responded, "Phone can't keep the bugs off."
That echoed Ronnie's sentiments exactly.
So, off we went to Walmart, in search of a tent.
We settled on a Coleman 4-man tent, with WeatherTec features.
We got a can of bug repellant, too.
That's not to say I don't hold him having a phone to be of high importance. However, he's had three phones in the last six months. If he doesn't find it to be of value, he'll just lose it again.
I treated him to a movie, too. This year, he chose "Terminator Genisys".
He liked it very much... and so did I.
I hope we will be able to do this again next year.
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