The Caregiver's Strategy - The First Part

For about two years, I took on the mission of making Romeo laugh. He was sad often. I became his personal jester. I clowned around with him, made funny faces, said unexpected things, told him silly jokes (which he usually didn't get), and got physical with him -- I'd pretend I was a roller derby queen and "shove" him out of the way; I'd tell him silly stories about passersby; at home, I'd hop onto his lap, straddling him while reciting part of the witches' cauldron scene from Shakespeare's Macbeth in the witchiest voice I could call forth:

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.
Filet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,--
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.

And all the while I would tickle him and mess with him -- pretending to pluck out his eyes (even though he isn't a newt), to pop a lizard's leg in my mouth, to stir the hell-broth -- even offering to make it for dinner that evening. He would laugh at all of it. Mission accomplished.

But, being the evil witch that I am, this was simply not enough for me. I had to go farther. So I performed my famous witch cackle until he cracked up, which didn't take long. My witch laugh is better than anything I've heard on the internet (yep, I promise to upload it somewhere at some point). My witch cackle pushed him over the top. He would laugh hard and push me away so he could hold his stomach in laughter. I would fall off the couch and roll around on the floor. Who knows what the neighbors thought? We didn't care.

Romeo was now out of his funk, and this lighter mood of his would stick until the next day. It was hard work in those days, keeping him happy.

These techniques don't work any longer. Romeo's moods go deeper these days. Humor no longer lifts him. What to do now?

Stay tuned for the rest of the story in The Caregiver's Strategy - The Second Part.