Being Nice

A Stodghill Says So blog:
I got bawled out because I wasn't nice to grandpa. The fact that I never met grandpa, who was an engineer on the Nickel Plate Road (that was a railroad and an engineer drove the trains), didn't save me from a scolding.
Grandpa, whose name was Brick Butler, had a clock that sits on a shelf. It tolls the hour and sounds a single note on the half hour. Jackie inherited it. For years it rested quietly atop a living room bookcase, but then a few months ago Jackie had it fixed for a fee slightly less than my yearly income.
I have nothing against this clock except when I happen to doze off in my chair, something that always seems to happen about ten minutes before the hour. When that hour arrives, the sound is similar to having a 500-pound bomb explode in the room.
So I happened to be walking by the clock when it announced the arrival of 11 a.m. When I came back down from an unplanned trip to the ceiling I turned to the clock and said, "Shut up!"
Jackie took umbrage with that. "Don't you talk to grandpa that way!"
I hadn't. I had talked to his clock. Well, a few more things were said, all of them by Jackie. I think I would be found innocent in any court of law. On that subject, Jackie often says, "You weren't innocent the day you were born."
Last night I watched a few minutes of a PBS pledge drive in which a Las Vegas female comedian was saying the sort of things most females, comedians or not, say about men. She said that her husband goes suddenly blind whenever he opens the refrigerator door. In other words he can't find anything. When she wants to hide something she just puts it on the middle shelf of the refrigerator.
I'm glad Jackie wasn't watching because she says the same thing about me. That's because whatever I'm looking for is hidden behind eight other items, usual on the lowest shelf. I don't find it easy to bend down to the lowest shelf. Actually I can bend down, but straightening up again is a problem.
Then, just to top things off, I told Jackie a joke I had read on this messageboard, one concerning the British view of a woman's bra and American soldiers: "One Yank and it's off."
She didn't get it. Oh, well, it was just one of those days.

Sounds to me that something is bothering Jackie. Maybe she's seen how badly you coped when she was ill and she's wondering how you would manage if you were left alone to cope by yourself. Or something entirely different. I'm also guessing she didn't get the joke because she was in no mood for laughing.

You'll have to get to the bottom of it.

But you might want to start at the top, Dick! It is true about the fridge--Al will stand mesmerized in front of the open door, and I expect he thinks the picture in there will change, as on the TV. If there is something special I want to save, all I need do is put something else in front of it.
Comes in handy sometimes.

My dad has one of those clocks Dick. Bloody thing.
We did eventually figure out that we were all happier if we just wound the the left key hole that wound the clock itself and not the chime. The chime was only activated if we wound the mechanism through the right key hole. My mum, however, loved that chime, so she'd wind it anyway.
Dad eventually found the switch that at least turned the chimes off during the middle of the night.
I could still hear those chimes in my head for months after I moved out of their place. Westminster. Yup. And I can still pick the damned things out on the piano.
Good luck Dick, 'cause I am thinking that Jackie is a lot like my mum, and there is no way that clock is going to ever be quiet again. Steady on mate!

My Grand mother had a delightful chimer that I loved. When I stayed with her, I would lay in bed waiting for the clock to announce the time after being tucked in. I had such fond memories of her clock that I found a wall clock that chimed. It has two different tunes and shuts off the chimes between 11pm and 6 am. I love it, Al doesn't. So it is in my room where I can enjoy it without disturbing him.