There comes a time in everyone’s caregiving experience when geri-drama claims a leading role in the story and morphs whatever tedious nonfiction tome you’ve been reading at bedtime into a page-turning, cliff-hanging, scream-evoking, Stephen King-style horror thriller that you can’t put down even if you’re exhausted and can’t keep your eyes open another minute. It’s when manageable becomes — wtaf is going on here? Is this real? Could it get any worse? Is there a denouement, for crying out loud? And the further you flip ahead in a panic, trying to find the nice, tidy conclusion, you realize — there isn’t one.

This is the time when every caregiver or “the person” needs a designated listener — someone who knows the storyline and will ask questions like “so what happened today?” or “then what?” or best, “can we read another chapter? People who are in the middle of geri-drama want to talk about their page-turning misadventures and a friend dedicated to hearing it is a resource like no other.

When I was remote caregiving for an older couple several years ago, I dumped on my friend, Lindsey during our morning runs. It was cathartic and helped me put the situation in perspective, even gave me clarity on action plans for the impossible scenarios I was facing on the daily. I would become incredulous if folks in my circle forgot to ask “what happened today?” because things were sooooo happening everyday, and always with new intensities and complexities. When I hosted a five-week Grand Plans workshop earlier this year, it became clear the real purpose of these gatherings was to allow folks the space to purge their “hold my beer” caregiving stories — the ones that had been bottled up and under-shared because there aren’t enough people out there willing to listen.

When someone asks, “so what happened today?” a caregiver can vomit the newest, most outrageous plot developments such as (these are all truths from shared stories of many Grand Plans friends):

• She spent $30K this month on Candy Crush cheats.
• I learned he had been married for the past 10 years.
• They gave the aide the debit card and she made her car payments with it.
• He said men hiding in the wall crawled in through the vent and took his iPad.
• I’ made it through one room of the house today.
• The power guy was outside about to turn the electricity off but the housekeeper was able to make payment at the grocery store.
• The caregiver was three hours late this morning and it was a mess.
• The house, the one that will provide for caregiving costs, was three days away from foreclosure.
• The HOA has sued over the height of the hedges.
• We weren’t sure if it was scabies or something else.

The moral of this story is this: if you know a person in the middle of some caregiving trials, understand they are most likely reading the worst, most unsettling book they’ve ever picked up and they would benefit greatly from your asking one, simple question: “so, what happened today?” Your interest and audience can help your friend develop a bestselling takeaway from their geri-dramatic work.