Tacoma Sweat Shop Exploiting Seniors

The day my Mom and Dad left, Kristin's mom arrived. During my Mom and Dad's visit they had an extensive task list that they had to complete each day.

My 70-something Dad had to dig up rhododendrons. Two of them. They were huge. Dad fixed doors, doorbells, car lights, built a raspberry patch complete with a trellis system. And for his biggest project my Dad converted a broom closet (some say this was an ironing board closet, the truth is in dispute) into a huge spice cabinet. I'm likely forgetting a lot of what my dear old Dad did here.

Meanwhile my Mom was tasked, with Dad's already overworked help, to can, jam and otherwise process a large amount of various fruits. Mom and Dad's day would start early and last late.

And, if all that were not enough, Mom and Dad also cooked dinner while they were here.

And then Kristin's mom, Janet, shows up. Janet is a renowned world class quilter in town to attend an International Quilters Convention in Seattle at the Washington State Convention Center. Despite her elevated credentials, Janet was immediately tasked with re-doing all the curtains in this house. It's a big house. Janet has been working on her various sewing projects for hours, using a primitive sewing machine. Janet was also tasked with sourcing the material. This required a long trip to Puyallup that was so exhausting that Janet's daughter ended up bedridden with a migraine. Meanwhile, Janet was a trooper and kept on sewing.

Yes, Janet trooped on. Motivated by things like the promise of Marionberry Pie. That failed to materialize, even after Janet worked for a few hours on the promise of that pie.

Isn't there some Federal agency that tries to prevent this type of abuse of Old Folks?

I don't mind the sweatshop conditions and tasks I'm put through. I'm relatively young and can handle it for the most part. But the workloads that my Mom and Dad and now Kristin's mom, Janet, have been put through, is just unseemly.

She is making some nice curtains though.