Dad LIkes Things Just So

Dad subscribes to the daily and Sunday editions of the N.Y. Times. The newspapers arrive in a thin blue plastic bag. Dad doesn't read much of the paper but he always looks at the front page and has one of the caregivers give him the small font Exxon stock quote from the Business Section.

Dad saves the Sunday paper for me. He never opens the blue bag and has little interest its contents. He knows I love the Sunday paper with the Book Section and all the other extras. He is extremely particular about wanting the Sunday paper intact in the blue bag, resting on the side chair in his bedroom where he can keep an eye on it until I come by to visit and pick it up. Caregivers offer to take the paper out of its wrapping but Dad has a vehement "No" response.

Just why he is so particular about this small ritual interests me. He's not at all happy when there is any variation from what he feels is the way it should be. I smile inside. Let him be finicky, picky, an insistent on things being a certain way.

He'll be 95 in about ten days. He can be however he wants to be and we don't need to know why.