My father got lost on the way home. This was not a good ending to a good visit (a visit made better by the fact that he bought me seven movies from the $5--it has dropped from $5.50--DVD bin at Wal-Mart).

His Garmin Nuvi 660 stopped navigating. Once he realized that he was in trouble, my father turned around and made his way back toward my house. Only...he over shot it by a few miles. Somehow he ended up at a movie theatre, parked his car, and asked someone to use a cell phone. I am thankful that one man took pity on him and called me.

Once I met up with him at the theatre, we had to go searching for his car because in all his confusion over being lost, he lost track of it. My poor father was literally blue with cold when I found him standing outside the theatre. He shivered beside me in the car as we wove our way through the aisles until we found his car and then dropped his keys four times trying to make his cold-stiffened hands work.

The plan then shifted to his coming home with me one more night. After getting gas for his car and for mine and picking up a hamburger from Ruby Tuesday's (a compromise since I did not want to go to a restaurant in my Dallas Cowboy lounge pants), we headed home and watched two more movies: Outbreak and True Lies.

He is in bed asleep now. I drew a map that would take him between my house and his in the hopes that he can get home tomorrow. However, I am not sure if putting him on the road without his cell phone (he forgot it at home) and without his Garmin (remember that is not not working just now) is the best idea. I thought about driving him half-way home, but I am not sure if my step-mother would meet me.

She is angry about all this. She thinks he broke the Garmin, but I know that he did not. All he did was change the navigation setting from Fastest Time to Off Road. You see, on the way here, he ended on up on beltway (never a good thing) and wanted to avoid doing so again on the way home. In truth, I was the one who actually changed the setting. So, if changing a setting is what broke the GPD unit, then it is my fault. This is actually the second one he has had because the first stopped working just a couple of weeks after he got it. I personally think that it is not the right unit for him. While my Magellan sometimes is fussy about entering addresses (and downright troublesome at this intersection near B's house), I think it is more user friendly for someone who needs repetitive actions to reinforce his memory.

For example, each time I route to a place on the Magellan, I am given the option of four navigational settings (Fastest Time, Shortest Distance, Most Use of Highways, and Least Use of Highways). On the Garmin, you set the navigation in a tool menu that is three screens separated from the routing menu and that process has to be repeated each time you want to change it. I just choose the navigational preference as a part of my routing.

Dad is 66 (I think...I need to do the math and it is much to late for mathematical computations). He is entirely too young to be having these problems...but he will not go to see a doctor about it and my step-mother will not take him either. She complains that he stays in the house too much...but really...if you got lost when you went out, wouldn't you choose to stay home? Being lost is quite frightening and a bit depressing. Because of the MS, I struggle with navigation myself when it comes to new places or those visited infrequently. I understand the fear and the frustration and the self-recrimation. I don't blame him for staying home and playing Spider on the computer.

I also happen to think that it must be terrifying to be my father right now...to know that his mind is failing. Oh, he is young...much, much too young for this.