Latchkey Elders

Ma began an obsession with locked doors a couple of years ago. She likes to feel safe, but the mechanics of the dead bolt, hand set and chain are out of her skill set. She is as likely to unlock a door if she is convinced it is not properly secure as she is to lock it. It is a 50/50 proposition. She has, in the past, barricaded the doors to her home with furniture. She has become hypersensitive to her personal security. Today, I lost my house keys. I left them in the mailbox. A kind neighbor took the keys and attempted to return them to me at my apartment. Ma was the only one home. She turned the Good Samaritan away in a less than polite manner. She is convinced that someone was attempting to scam her. Who knows what she thought she heard as she peeked through the peep hole and saw the woman with the keys. Hopefully she was not too insulting or vulgar. Yea, Ma now regularly uses vulgarity when she feels threatened. The words, I would never use myself, flow from her lips like a sailor that has been at sea for a year and has learned he won't be allowed a Liberty when port is reached. I wasn't aware that she even knew the words she uses. For Ma's security I have her keys on a fluorescent floating device with a license plate with her first name, apartment building, and my phone number on it. Maybe I should have gotten one for myself.