Month: November 2006

Last Saturday Grandpa fell while he was out getting the mail. It wasn’t the first time he has fallen. In fact, several weeks ago I had suggested that he might want to start using the cane down in the basement because of the difficulty he had walking and keeping his balance, and because of the regularity with which he fell. At the time he demurred, saying something equivalent to “No not now, maybe later . . . some other time.”

I think Grandpa didn’t want to use the cane because that was admitting defeat. It was admitting a state of decrepitness which, so long as he didn’t use a cane, he could tell himself, “Well, I’m not that bad.”

It is a milestone. A cane is a clear and vivid statement about one’s strength and ability. I’m not even sure Grandpa intended to start using it now. He asked after the cane after he fell, but A. said he may have only been wanting to make sure it was around and only started using because he got flustered when it was brought to him.

Whatever the case, Grandpa took to it fast enough and there has been no looking back. I think once he had it in his hands he realized how much more secure it made him feel and once the inhibition was overcome it no longer felt like such a big deal. Now Grandpa uses the cane like an old pro, poking his way about the house.

I would like to think the cane will keep Grandpa from falling. In truth, I’m not so sure. He forgets his cane about half the time, and that is perhaps the most likely time for him to fall. But at least for right now it makes him feel more comfortable moving about, and that is a good thing.

Grandpa rarely talks about his Alzheimer’s. When I first came to live with them I wondered if he even remembered or realized that he had Alzheimer’s. I soon learned that he does know he has Alzheimer’s, and he does think about it. He talks about it very rarely, but sometimes he does. With all the problems that Grandpa has it is easy for a person to think he “isn’t there.” But the rare times he does talk about it reveals a man who is much more aware of his problems than a lot of people would give credit.

Sometimes I wonder if we really can comprehend such suffering to have empathy enough . . . to really understand what it is like to wrestle every day with a disease which is slowly stripping you of everything . . . and your ability to communicate first.

What follows is a rough approximation of the conversation Grandpa had with me this evening.

While I was in the bathroom I heard Grandpa trying to communicate with Arlan. I came out and asked Arlan. what Grandpa had wanted and Arlan said he hadn’t been able to figure out. I found Grandpa coming up from the basement. “What would you like, Grandpa?” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said, picking up a bit of lint from the carpet. “I can’t remember. I know it was something, but I can’t remember. I wish . . .” he trailed off walking into the kitchen. I followed.

“. . . Typewriters, shorthand, and all that stuff. You know,” he said, taking his chair.

“I know what shorthand is, and I know what typewriters are,” I said, not sure where he was going or what he was getting at.

“Is that my coffee?” He pointed at the mostly finished cup.

“Yes, that’s your cup,” I said.

“Well, I think about it . . . I think about it to myself and I wonder ‘couldn’t all the smart people and big chiefs get together with the stuff and come up with something down the pike for people who can’t talk.’”

“Well . . .” I said now understanding what he was getting at. Grandpa’s failing ability to communicate is the biggest source of grief for him. I don’t have a nice pat answer to what I know is the heart of his problem but since he stated his question in a general way I decide to continue the conversation in the same manner.

“For someone who couldn’t talk,” I said, “they could learn how to type and they could communicate that way.”

“Yeah,” he said and rubbed at his eyebrow. “But for someone with Alzheimer’s . . . they need something. When you try to say something you can’t and then you lose it, but it’s still there and you know it. People . . . Grandma is the worst.”

“She just stares at you like she don’t understand anything,” I said.

“That’s right.” He adjusted his glasses and mimicked Grandma’s blank blinking stare. “They say ‘What? What? What do you want? What’s coming down the pike?’ And you can’t say it. It’s lost.”

“I know,” I said. And I do know Grandma’s reaction to his failing attempts to communicate is a great source of distress for Grandpa. When she just says, “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” and doesn’t make any attempt to interact with Grandpa he feels both like he has been brushed off, and, I think, that he is being lost in an inability to communicate. How would you feel if you were losing the ability to communicate in the same language as your family?

“I know a little bit what it is like, Grandpa,” I said. “Sometimes I loose my words too and I can’t figure out how to say it.”

“That’s right,” he said. “It happens to everyone sometimes.” Then he laughed a little and said, “Well, if you come up with something I’ll sing your praises.”

And that was the end of it.

***

The above doesn’t communicate all the nuance of our exchange. When talking with someone suffering with Alzheimer’s’s sometimes half of the conversation is taking place on an unspoken level. Grandpa struggles so much to hang on to his thoughts and keep them in an organized fashion that he often only speaks half of them, speaks unclearly, and uses the wrong words. A conversation is never so straightforward as a written account makes it seem.

Grandma’s inability to understand Grandma very well is only half her fault. I think she could be more long-suffering and patient with Grandpa, but I realize that interpreting his words and filling in the silences requires quick thinking and an agile mind . . . something Grandma isn’t really up to anymore. Grandma probably wouldn’t have been able to understand what Grandpa was trying to get at with “Shorthand, Typewriters, Smart people, and big chiefs.” But her response of simply staring blankly and Grandpa and saying, “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” and then finding the best thing she can think of (in her mind) to appease Grandpa isn’t a helpful solution.

Very rarely will anyone ever understand immediately what Grandpa is talking about, but to simply say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” simply trips up Grandpa more, and makes him feel as if you’re brushing him off–you’re not even trying to devote any effort to understand what he is trying to communicate. The thing to do is get close to him and make eye contact. Then you reiterate what he was talking about (even if it doesn’t make much sense) and often he will either correct himself “That wasn’t the right words. What I meant was . . .” or else he will continue his line of thought and sometimes the continuing thought will make it clear what he meant.

In this case I responded to his first statement about shorthand and typewriters by telling him I knew what they were. This gave Grandpa the confidence to feel like he was really communicating with me. When he went on to talk about smart people and big chiefs getting together with all the stuff to get something down the pike to help people who couldn’t talk the context was set and I was able to interpret what he was saying without flustering him or confusing him by trying to make him explain.

Grandma is generally incapable of this method of complex interaction and usually conversation between them ends in a failure to one degree or another. I try to deal with Grandpa’s concerns and requests because I want him to feel like he has got a hearing. Sometimes I even end up being a go-between between Grandma and Grandpa. Grandpa asks Grandma a question and Grandma gives him a blank stare. I interpret what Grandpa was trying to say. Grandma answers me. Then Grandma says in a mildly hurt voice, “Why does she always answer you and not me?”

Grandpa is worse in the evenings. Some evenings he is better than others. Some evenings he is quite bad. His confusion can add up, one confused piling on top of another making his muddle thoughts all the more muddle until things have spiralled completely out of control.

This morning Grandpa wanted to take a shower. I got the water adjusted properly and left him to his business. A little later I heard a shout from the bathroom.

“Everything all right in there?” I called through the door.

“Yeah, you can come on in,” Grandpa said.

On entering I found him standing in the stall with the door opened. I discerned that he wanted me to check some water, but for what cause, and what water he wanted checked wasn’t clear. He pointed to the toilet and told me to check the water and see if it was cold. I thought maybe his shower water had become cold and I asked him if he wanted it adjusted. No, he said, his water was fine. At this point I became confused, no longer being able to guess what his concern was. I wasn’t going to check the toilet water, and I hazarded a guess that his concern might have had something to do with the faucet so I turned it on and checked the water.

“Is it cold?” Grandpa said.

“I can make it cold,” I said. “Right now it is hot.”

At this point Grandpa became flustered and mumbled that he guessed everything was all right. I left thinking that maybe he had been concerned that he was stealing all the hot water from everyone else and that is what he wanted me to check. Later I found out otherwise.

Grandpa is often distracted from his initial goal. After supper he left the table and went to the bathroom. In reconstructing the situation afterward, I figured out he left to take a crap in the toilet. But I didn’t know that at the time–I only knew Grandpa had got up from the table after finishing his supper. And he didn’t remember why he had gone to the bathroom sometime after he got there.

Grandpa usually takes off his overshirt before he sits down on the toilet out of a fear that his shirt might somehow drop in the toilet or get wet. However, he also takes off his overshirt when he is going to shower, wash his face, and shave. So the point of taking off his shirt is where he often gets derailed. Such was the case tonight.

A little later he came tottering back out of the bathroom without anything on his upper body, requesting something which he was unable to articulate. I took a good guess and asked him if he wanted a wash cloth. “Yes, that’s it,” Grandpa said. “I want a wash cloth.”

I got him a wash cloth and checked in on the situation in the bathroom. Up until that point I wasn’t sure if he was intending to wash his face or take a shower. I saw a towel laid out on the floor and concluded that he was preparing to take a shower. He had already taken one that morning, he didn’t need to take one, but I wasn’t going to argue him out of it. Taking a shower would cause him no harm, and it would cause him less agitation if I let him do what he wanted.

By this time Grandma joined the show. I try to avoid having Grandma help Grandpa as much as possible. Soon as she understood what he was trying to do, she tried to stop him. “Why are you doing that?” she said. “You already took a shower this morning, Papa. You don’t need a shower. You don’t need anything in there.” By the time she was finished bulldozing him Grandpa was sputtering, defensive, humiliated, and even more confused. Grandma had made him feel stupid and angry, made him no less confused, and did nothing to solve whatever he felt was his problem.

Grandma left Grandpa simmering in the bathroom doorway.

“I can still help you take your shower,” I said.

“Never mind that,” he said angrily. “I’m not going to take one. I’m not going to do nothing.”

“Well what would you like to do?” I said.

He looked at me. “Can you take those things off? Those socks and stuff,” he said, indicating my socks and pants.

“Yes, I can take them off,” I said, not sure where this was going.

“Well take them off and come in here and sick your leg in this water and test it for me.”

I went over to the tub and stuck my hand under the faucet. “You want me to get some water the right temperature?” I said.

“No,” he said. “Stick your hand in that water,” he said, pointing toward the toilet. “It’s veeerry cold.”

I paused. Whenever possible I try to fulfill whatever request Grandpa might have no matter how strange it might seem. His requests have meaning to him, and as such they are important to him and so I try very hard to not brush him off. But there was a big problem with this request.

“Grandpa,” I said. “That has piss in it.”

“Oh, come on,” he said. “It’s got to have been flushed a half a dozen times.”

The water in the bowel was yellow with piss.

Feeling a confrontation coming, and not exactly sure how to deal with his request to stick my hand in a toilet bowl full of piss-water, I decided to stall by flushing the toilet.

“Um, Grandpa,” I said after clean water had come in. “Why do you want me to check the water?”

He flustered a bit, then turned away and said, “Never mind. I’m not as stupid as you guys think.”

He was angry because Grandma had called him down and made him feel a fool, he was angry because he couldn’t convey his desire, and I think he was angry and humiliated because some part of him realized that in trying to convey his wishes to me he had asked me to do something really stupid but another irrational part of him was annoyed because I didn’t get what he had wanted, and hadn’t done what I wanted.

Dressed in nothing but his undershorts he tottered back toward the kitchen grumbling about how everyone thinks he his stupid and no one is any help, “And you most of all,” he said, catching sight of Grandma.

I just wanted to let it go. Grandpa was humiliated, confused, and angry. I was willing to let him chew out the world and me included if it made him feel better and if it would lay the matter to rest. But Grandpa heard his final “And especially you,” and she took it as being aimed at me. “Don’t you go talking to your help that way, Pa,” she said. Great, I thought. I don’t need an argument now.

But now on top of everything else Grandpa was feeling guilty about his attitude and actions . . . as well as angry, frustrated, and confused. “I know I shouldn’t,” he said. At this point I tried to intervene again, saying it was all right, and if there was anything he wanted me to do I would try to do it.

This launched Grandpa into a long rambling aggrieved discourse through which I finally managed to understand that he was concerned about the water line to the toilet freezing. Everything clicked into place.

“Okay,” I said. “I understand what your concerned about. But . . . what would you like me to do to take care of the problem?” It is better to offer a pro-active solution, but in that instant I couldn’t think of what I could do to alleviate the perceived danger of the toilet line freezing.

“Well,” Grandpa said, sounding offended. “Someone could at least open the door to the closet under the stairs to let some warm air in. But nobody wants to–”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go do that. I can open the door under the stairs.”

“Never mind, never mind,” Grandpa said. “I’m not in charge here. I don’t have any say. You guys do what you want.”

So we came back to doing nothing. Grandpa got back into his clothes and comb his hair. Afterword he apologized and I said I forgave him and I didn’t think he was stupid.

But I still wonder how he knew the toilet water was veeery cold.

It is 10:30 PM and I just finally got Grandpa into bed. He doesn’t go to bed at a consistent time. On the very early end he is heading toward bed by 8:00 and might be in bed by 8:30. The normal is around 9:30. But sometimes . . . sometimes something happens.

Grandma went to bed at 10:00 and with no one else up (and me making myself scarce in the bedroom reading) I hoped he would become bored and decide to go to bed. He had been resisting my suggestions all evening, determinedly staying out in the living room. I don’t know if his unwillingness to go to bed was tied to the fact that he had been eating large quantities of chocolate cake all evening, or something else.

After Grandma went to bed I went out to check on him and he asked me to put a movie on for him to watch. (More precisely, he was trying to get the remote to work and, being unsuccessful was asking for another remote that worked. When honesty forced me to confess that the remote did work he asked me to put something on for him.) So I put on the old Turner Classic Movies channel and left him watching some black and white adaptation of a Sinclair Lewis novel.

I went back to my reading and stopped every once in a while to go out and check on him. I knew he was starting to reach his end when I came out once and he told me I could sit down with him. I told him no, I was going back to the bedroom. Maybe ten minutes later he opened the bedroom door wearing nothing on his upper body and carrying his T-shirt.

“Mind if I bother you?” he said.

“No, come on in,” I said.

“Then prepared to be bothered,” he said.

“You want that T-shirt on?” I said. “You ready to go to bed?”

“Yes, I want this on and this off, and I’m ready to go to bed.”

So I helped him get his T-shirt on, and prompted him on the rest of the steps for going to bed. Then he wanted to say goodnight to Grandma. She had already gone to bed, but I decided it had been a short enough time that I wasn’t going to deny him the opportunity of saying good-night. After guiding him through the process of saying goodnight to Grandma I got him back to his bedroom and into bed. Then I put on the Bible on CD for him to listen to.

10:30 PM. I’m going to give him twenty minutes or so to listen to his CD. Hopefully he will fall asleep in that amount of time. Then I can go to bed, turn of the CD player, and get some sleep. And some rest.

Two hours later, or there-abouts, he’ll be up for his first night trip to the bathroom. And about every two hours it continues, for the rest of the night. Back up for the next day after 7:00 AM.

Grandpa has difficulty walking. There are probably three things that contribute; he often has a bad back ache, he has lost a lot of strength in his legs which makes it more laborious to lift his feet, and a result of Alzhiemer’s is the victim eventually forgets how to walk. My cousin M’s other grandfather died as a result of Alzhiemer’s and she says Grandpa is walking just like her other grandfather did before he forgot how to walk. Combined with this is my own observation that when Grandpa is more confused his walking ability becomes worse–sometimes it seems like he forgets how to move forward and must make an effort to remember–leads me to conclude that Grandpa’s primary problem with his walking is a direct result of Alzhiemer’s.

Grandpa is aware of his walking problem, though I am not sure what he thinks is the cause of the problem. He has complained about “Why can’t I lift my feet better?” but I think he imagines it is an actual physical ailment of some type. He knows (at least in his more cognizant moments) that he has Alzhiemer’s but doesn’t always associate his problems with the disease.

Because of Alzhiemer’s, Grandpa can do things which have no discernable reason. But other times there is a reason behind what he does. Yesterday I saw Grandpa doing things which at first struck me as a little odd, but I think, in the end, had a reasonable reason.

I first saw him over at the couch doing what looked like leg stretches. A little later I saw him in a different part of the house doing what looked like calf exercises. Then, a little later yet, I saw him walking up and down the hall. Any one of these things singularly could have been passed off as Grandpa acting weird, but they came in succession and Grandpa appeared to be deliberately walking up and down the hall (not wandering, like he often does). It seems Grandpa decided to exercise, or at least practice his walking.

I wish I could encourage him to do this more often, as I think it is good for him and might slow the progress of the disease. However, you might be able to suggest that Grandpa do something one day, but if you keep it up for several days it begins to feel like nagging to Grandpa and he becomes recalcitrant. Such things must be Grandpa’s own idea, and I suspect this exercise was a passing whim.

He walked fairly well in his deliberate track up and down the hall. Soon as he stopped and went off to do something else he reverted back to his uncertain gait. Walking, really, no longer comes to him without thinking.

So the downward slide continues.

If you see Grandpa at his worst one might think he is “lost” in the disease. He can’t think, he can’t communicate, he can’t do anything (you think) . . . his very personality had disappeared. So you might think if you saw him at his worst. But a passing observation doesn’t give a fair picture. Grandpa isn’t at his worst every day, and he hasn’t disappeared beneath the disease.

Grandpa still has his sense of humor. When he is most befuddled and confused his humor is lost, like everything else, but on a normal day flashes of his humor will come out–a flicker of the old Grandpa from before the world became such a confusing and uncertain place. There are two recent examples.

Some days ago Uncle D was over and Grandma was singing the praises of my book. Uncle D turned to Grandpa and said, “Have you read it?” Grandpa looked at Uncle D and dead-panned, “No, I don’t read that type of trash.”

Then yesterday morning Grandpa and I were in the kitchen when M staggered in, looking as if she had just woke up. “What is that thing in the bathroom?” she mumbled.

“What?” I said.

“What is that thing in the bathroom?”

I stared at her, puzzled. By the way she said it one would be forgiven for thinking she found some revolting mess on the bathroom floor. I started toward the bathroom to check when I finally guessed what she was talking about. The previous day Grandma had bought a new toilet plunger–a strange hi-tech plunger.

“You mean this,” I said, returning from the bathroom with the plunger. “This is our lipo-suction device.”

“Oh. It’s a plunger,” M said, finally waking up enough to recognize the device.

Fifteen minutes later, life had moved on. M had left, and I was working at the sink. Then Grandpa started laughing.

“What?” I said.

He looked at me. “What is that thing?” he said, parroting M.

Grandpa can still see humor in life, and he can still make jokes.

There are many dangers for Grandpa. It is impossible to eliminate all dangers but I try to make a measured judgement about what should be done about those I see. There is little that can be done about the danger of him falling, but he isn’t allowed to drive or play with fire. Beyond the obvious “not allowed” activities, most other possible dangers are handled on a case-by-case basis, usually with oversight.

But then there are the unnoticed dangers.

Grandpa often forgets why he went to the bathroom. Usually he goes in to use the toilet and when he arrives begins to do something else. A common impulse is to fill up the sink with water. I think this is an old memory impulse from when he used to shave with a razor. Since he no longer has a razor what begins as a shaving usually ends up as a face washing and hair combing. It is a harmless activity so when I catch him fighting with the sink drain trying to get it to stop up the sink I help him and then leave him to his splashing in the water.

That was the beginning yesterday. Grandpa went into the bathroom, opened and close the medicine cabinet, then turned on the water and began to fight with the drain. I helped him stop up the drain, watched to make sure he wasn’t going to leave the water running indefinitely and flood the bathroom, and once he stopped the water and began his splashing I left.

A little later I decided I had better go back and check on him again to make sure he wasn’t getting into any trouble. First thing I see is Grandpa fiddling with his electric razor which is plugged into the outlet beside the sink and is now half dangling into the sink full of water. First reaction is Aaiieee! Why didn’t I see that one coming! Next is quick intervention, first unplugging the razor from the outlet, then carefully elevate the razor back out of the water.

Grandpa wants to shave. First I convince him that he should empty the water out of the sink before he shaves. Then I take off the plastic head cover and shake out what water I can. It doesn’t look like much water got into the device. I dry it off, and since it is battery operated (when not plugged into the wall) I switch it on. Electric shaver still works. I give it back to Grandpa and let him shave.

While he shaves I think about the outlet right next to the sink. It was only in the sudden moment of near electrocution that I noticed the outlet was not a Ground Fault Interrupt outlet. According to code (and any safety concious individual) electrical outlets in bathrooms must be GFI so that if there is ever any problem no one is electrocuted. Time to replace the bathroom outlet.

How many other dangers are right under my nose that I can’t see?

Around Grandpa one has to become accustomed to non-sequitors and free flowing activity. The protein plaque builds up on his brain as Alzheimer’s progresses and it becomes an increasing struggle for his brain to function. Two results of this are the failure to properly process information, which leads to non-sequitors, and the inability to follow a course of thoughts and action, which leads to free flowing activity. These two problems are very, very, common in his daily life. It is at the point where they are more common activity than normal environmental interaction (whether with people or objects)

Grandpa wakes up often every night to go to the bathroom. A good trip is when he gets up to use the bathroom, does so, and comes back promptly and gets back into bed–all without turning on the light. Usually a bathroom trip isn’t so good. Grandpa usually can leave the bedroom without turning on the light, but just as often needs to turn it on when he gets back. Obviously having the light turned on is disruptive for me, but worse is that with the light on Grandpa is far more likely to see something that will derail his train of thought and instead of going directly to bed he will start doing something else. Maybe he will see a bit of junk on the floor that needs to go into the garbage. Maybe he will decide he needs to neaten his bed. Or maybe he will decide he needs some toilet paper off the roll beside the bed and he will spend a few minutes carefully folding a few sheets of paper. Or else he will decide to organize the top of the dresser. These are the common derailing activities the slow the process of going back to bed. For me it is very easy to see how his eyes rests on these various objects and he thinks something about them that gets his mind on a different track from going to bed. Usually his derailment doesn’t last more than a few minutes, but at 2:00 AM a few minutes with the light on feels much longer.

Last night when Grandpa came back from the bathroom he turned the bedroom light on and his eyes fell on a sweater lying on his bed. He picked it up and began to put it on.

“Grandpa,” I said. “Do you really want to put the sweater on?”

“I might get cold,” he said. (Which is certainly the thought prompted in his mind by seeing the sweater, but in reality he wasn’t going to get cold in bed.)

“All right,” I said. When I see him get derailed I generally try to prompt him with questions to help keep him on track but if he insists on his derailed thought I will usually let him go on with it. I feel this better respects his dignity.

He was halfway through putting on the sweater when the non-sequitor came. “You awake?” He said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m awake.”

“No,” he said. “I was talking to the little dog over there.”

“Oh,” I said. There were some objects in the direction he pointed. Perhaps one of them looked like a dog to him. Sometimes Grandpa is clearly mis-seeing objects (or not correctly interpreting what he sees,) other times his statements are so far removed from the reality of the situation that one might wonder if it is a complete hallucination. I presently don’t think Grandpa has visual hallucinations. We all must interpret what our eyes tells us–for normal healthy adults this is an instantaneous process that most of the time we don’t even think about. Not so for Grandpa struggling under the stifling protein plaque killing his brain. He struggles to understand what he is seeing, and compounded with that is a mental detachment. I think these combine to create the seeming hallucinatory occasions. Somehow he saw something that struck him as looking like a dog, and in his mental detachment there seemed nothing strange about such a sight in his bedroom.

After he got his sweater on he sat down on the edge of his bed and saw his socks beside the bed. So he put them on.

“Grandpa, you’re getting into bed,” I prompted. “Do you wear your socks to bed?”

“Sometimes,” he said.

I let it pass. Ten minutes after he was back in bed with the light out he sat back up and took the sweater off. Sometime later in the night I think he took off the socks as well.

**

Another example of derailment was this afternoon. Grandma sent Grandpa to mail two letters. As best I can reconstruct it he went down to the mailbox and saw the empty garbage can there. Then he checked the mailbox and saw the mail had already come. So he took the garbage can back up to the garage. Then, since he couldn’t open the garage from the outside, he went back into the house by the front door and went down to the garage. But now in the garage he couldn’t remember what he was doing, so he took something out of the garage into the house. I heard all of the door opening and shutting and went down to check on him. I found him in the garage with the letters still clutched in one hand, moving a jug of windshield washer fluid around.

“Need any help?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

Since he declined the offer of help and wasn’t getting into any dangerous trouble, I let him be. A little later he came up and asked me where he should put the letters. After a little questioning I managed to determine that there was mail already in the box and he didn’t see any point in putting the letters out until tomorrow morning. Perhaps he had a brain freeze and couldn’t figure out how to take the received mail out of the box and put the out-going mail in at the same time and so reasoned that the letters didn’t need to go out yet. I told him he could put the letters by the telephone to go out later. Then Grandpa decided he would go outside to get the mail that had arrived.

When he came back inside with the mail he saw some specks of dirt on the carpet. So he put the mail down on the floor and got on his hands and knees to pick up the flecks of dirt. I sorted the mail and Grandpa went to take his little flecks of dirt down to the trash can in the garage.