Accountable?

I was recently watching “Mad Men.” I don’t do network television, but I do do whole series’ on DVD.

Betty Draper had to go down to Pennsylvania to visit with her father who recently contracted Alzheimer Disease. After breakfast, her father grabbed her ass, and although it was awkward, she sloughed it off, and blamed it on the disease.

I started thinking about this thing we do in society, where we make concessions for people’s behavior because they are sick, or because they die, or because there is some easy excuse or another.

And then, I noticed upon a little reading, that the European “diet” of bread and cheese and a little wine, might reduce the risk of contracting the disease…

But, if I were to play a little elimination game with the other factors suggested to lower the risk, it looks to me like the “American Way” was more to blame than any one factor. If you look at the prevention list, you will giggle (or not) to find that, the way to assure yourself some good old fashioned Alzheimer’s is to sit on your ass, watch Tee-Vee in your Aluminum trailer eating crap definitely do NOT read a book, or incite your creativity to rise and eventually you will need some factor like Alzheimer’s to trip the system. Suddenly you have an excuse to tell you wife how much you really hate her.

When a man contracts Alzheimer Disease, and then tells his wife every day that she is ugly, or that she should just die already, can one really believe that those words weren’t meant for her, or someone anyway. Can we really shrug our shoulders and say he never meant it?

I would venture to say that the people who contract such a disease might actually have been the unaccountable type even in health.

Might it be possible that it is a pretty convenient disease, for someone who never owned their feelings, or took responsibility for their actions, to contract? I have a close friend who is going through this with her mother. While she cares for someone who never really cared for her, she is able to justify this action with her compassion, and the fact that her mother is sick.

I think it is not too far off to venture such a theory.

I really don’t.