Background: My MIL is older than most MILs for people my age. I am 30, my husband is 38, my MIL is 73. She is also old for her age - not in great health and has been part of a super conservative church her whole life that kept her in a box and naive. She has diabetes and a heart issue, making her especially vulnerable to COVID-19. Right now my husband, son and I live with MIL because she was living alone in a huge 6 bedroom house in the snowiest part of the country and could not manage literally getting the garbage bag out of the can let alone shoveling her outside stairs. It's a compromise for us as well because we are not well-off financially right now so it's convenient to stay in a home that's paid off, etc. Right now we're all quarantining together except my husband, who is an essential worker at a retirement home.

Despite these things, MIL decided to venture out of our bubble to get her pills from Walmart yesterday. I am 8 months pregnant so I can't go anywhere and my husband was at work and she didn't want to wait. She doesn't drive or go anywhere alone very often because she gets confused and moves verrrrrry slowly so it's frustrating for her. I told her to call one of her 4 children that live locally to get her meds but she said it was fine and she had some other shopping to do anyways. So, off she went around 10 AM to a Walmart that is about a 12 minute drive away.

Around 12:30 I realized she still wasn't home (it's a big house) and thought that was odd. The house phone rings, which I never answer because it's her phone and I'm socially awkward and avoid chit chat etc. and obviously have my own phone. It goes to voicemessage and I hear my MIL's voice travel from the phone base: "Elephant, I am at Walmart and I cannot find my car. This has never happened before. I walked around the parking lot for nearly an hour and I cannot find it. I'm going to go look again." and hangs up before I can grab the phone. She had called from the customer service desk because she doesn't have a cell phone.

Well, my dad did something similar a few years ago and it turned out he had had a stroke. So I instantly was worried that something like that had happened and called my husband at work, which is actually across the street from Walmart. He said he needed an hour and I said NO something could be wrong and she's old and wandering around a parking lot - go now! He said he'd try. So, next I called my BIL who is a nurse and he was also instantly concerned and began the drive to Walmart after calling the service desk and berating them for letting her go back out into the parking lot alone.

Well it turned out my husband had left quickly after I told him the stroke thing so he got there within a few minutes and found her holding her bags and wandering around the parking lot. The parking lot is shaped like an L. She insisted she had parked alone the long part of the L and NEVER parks on the short side, if that makes sense. So they both drove up and down and didn't find it. She began getting hysterical that her car was stolen. My husband decided to check the short side and there was her car - parked like 3 spaces up. She had NO memory of parking over there. Nurse BIL called and talked to her and asked her some basic medical questions like if she felt confused and if she could find her way home. She was VERY offended that he had asked these questions and said she OBVIOUSLY knew her way home!!!

She is now absolutely not allowed to leave the house 1.) because of COVID-19 and 2.) because my husband can't afford to leave work whenever she loses her damn car again. Oh and in her bags were her pills, oreos, peanut butter cookies, chocolate Milanos, a party-sized bag of Snickers and chocolate muffins. Did I mention she's diabetic?