March 21, 2021 Shenanigans

Lisa has a shirt that says something about St Patrick’s Day Shenanigans. I forgot to get her picture while she was wearing it! Anyway, I started to think about her shenanigans when she was living independently. As with most kids’ shenanigans, I am probably only aware of a small part of them. She lived independently in Minot and Devils Lake with minimal supervision and they taught her to call and ask for a Senior and Disability bus to come and pick her up and take her to work. I’m sure that’s where she also learned how to call a taxi.  I’ve said before that her writing and reading is her strength. Well math and numbers are her weakness. She just doesn’t get it. Although after we would visit her and maybe go out to eat and then drop her off at her apartment, she would ask “can I have a dollar?” And as the years progressed, she would ask for $10! Anyway, because of her difficulty with numbers, she has always needed help with shopping and paying her bills and she has not had access to her check book. Most places she has lived, they kept her checkbook and other valuables such as her identification cards in a lock box. Well either staff forgot to lock the lock box or she figured out how to get into it because on a Sunday afternoon, she called a taxi and paid the driver with a check and had them take her to Kmart so she could do a little shopping! She paid for her stuff with a check too. When they called to tell me about it, my first question was whether she overdrew her account? She had not so we simply put some things in place so it wouldn’t happen again.  Around this same time, she walked into her neighbors (another developmentally disabled individual) apartment and looked in his freezer and stole his fish sticks! He was mad and called the police. Her staff asked if they could call the police to have them talk to her about not stealing and I said that they sure could but that she had family members who were policemen so she probably wouldn’t fear them. Anyway, the police were called and they talked to her and also put her in the back of their car and took a drive around Minot. Can’t you just see her sitting in the back of the car, riding around Minot and waving at people like she’s in a parade. Oh, Lisa!