Virgie and Eula

My parents are divorced.  I'm not going to go into the juicy details, but the gist of the whole drama (and it is drama, believe me) is that several years ago my dad decided to have an affair with a much younger woman.  Which would be bad if that's all it was.  But it's worse when that woman is the small-town America head football coach's wife who taught with my mom at the same elementary school. Needless to say, my mom and her aren't on the greatest of terms.  And that's putting it very very nicely.  If they were ever in the same room (even if it was 30 or 40 years from now), I'm afraid one of them would not make it out of there alive. And I'm pretty certain I know which one that would be.  What in the heck does that have to do with funny nursing home stories you ask?  Well, here's why.

We had a lady named 'Virgie' admit to our nursing facility for rehab.  She was coming from home and had had a spell that left her really weak.  She needed rehab, so we had her sweating to the oldies in our therapy room.  Anyone tooling around the halls is likely to wheel/walk by our room, because it's on the same hall as the dining room. And for those of you who haven't been to a nursing home, there are two times of the day that the elderly look forward to--meal time and the time when their bowels move.  So the therapy room gets alot of foot traffic! Anyway, so here's Virgie doing her exercises when along comes 'Eula' wheeling to the dining room. Eula is a very social lady who has the beginning stages of Alzheimer's.  She always says hello coming and going from the dining room.  And she has the most distinct voice--you can hear her from a mile away.  Anybody ever watched Slingblade?  Well, Eula sounds like the guy from that movie...you know, the guy who, after every sentence, says "Mmm Hmm?" So all of a sudden, I hear, "Virgie Vernon is that you?"  And Virgie, who I always thought of as really sweet and a little deaf, replied, "Damn straight it's me Eula North."  And a staredown takes place.  Then Eula says in a loud voice, "You bitch!" Virgie smirks and states..."You're still pissed off, huh?"  And being the one who is supposed to be in charge and is supposed to create some sort of order, I come between them. "Whoa whoa.  What is going on here ladies?"  And Eula proceeds to tell me that Virgie had an affair with her ex-husband 30 years ago and they ran off together with Eula's kids.  And I look at Virgie, really just expecting her to tell Eula what a big fat liar she was. But nope.  Virgie looks at Eula and then does a Vanna White hand motion down her body.  "And look what he got." HA.

Needless to say, I made sure they weren't on the same hall.  But the funny thing is that this happened about a year ago, and now, Virgie and Eula sit together at the same table in the dining room.  They drive each other crazy but in some twisted way, they have become friends.  I still hear Eula tell Virgie to "shut the hell up about her indigestion"  or Virgie bark at Eula to quit sleeping during lunch, but for the most part, they tolerate each other.