The call from St. Louis rarely says the bulb is out. It says the kitchen is dark, the hall light flickers, or the remote has stopped working, and the person who answers is a neighbor with a flashlight and no idea where anything is kept. A spare parts shelf turns that call into a five-minute fix. It takes an afternoon to set up, and it puts the house's small failures in one place that someone local can reach without waiting on you.
Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.
Decide who owns the shelf
Someone has to restock it, and it should not be whoever happens to notice it is empty. Name the owner in writing: you, a sibling, or the local helper if your arrangement includes restocking. The owner buys the replacements. Whoever uses an item puts the old one back in its place or tells the owner it is gone. Without a named owner, the shelf empties within a season and the bulbs end up back in the car.
Stock the things that stop a room
Start with the failures that make a home dark, loud, or unusable for an hour. Keep bulbs for every fixture type in the house, a few batteries in the sizes your remotes, clocks, and flashlights take, a working flashlight, and a spare fuse if your panel uses fuses. Add batteries for any device she wears or uses every day, and write down which battery each one takes, since the device itself can be hard to open when you are not in the room.
Leave out anything that needs a professional or a second person. A ladder job, a gas smell, or a dead furnace is not a shelf item. The shelf handles the small problems so the real ones stand out.
Label it so a stranger can find it
Your local helper should be able to find the right item without calling you. Write the bulb base type, the wattage, and the battery size on each package in marker, not only on a box tucked in a drawer. Keep one index card on the shelf or cabinet door that lists what goes where, which fixture takes which bulb, where the breaker panel is, and where the main water shutoff is. Photograph the card and send the photo to everyone who holds a key, so the list survives if the card goes missing.
Check it on every visit and every call
On each visit, walk the shelf and count what is low. Replace what you used, not the whole stock. When the local helper checks in, ask one question: did anything go dark or stop working since we last talked? A dead bulb reported this week is a five-minute job. The same bulb reported again a month later is a sign something else is wrong, like a loose fixture or a tripped circuit, and that goes on your list for a closer look.
If you still need someone local to hold the key and check the shelf, start with Local Help for a St. Louis Parent.
Tonight
Tonight, open the cabinet you would reach for first in a bad hour, empty it onto the floor, and sort what you find into bulbs, batteries, and everything else. Write the sizes on the packages. Draft the index card. Name one person who restocks the shelf, and tell them in writing.
What to leave with the doctor
Nothing from this shelf goes to a doctor. If a device she uses needs a specific part or battery, ask the clinic or the device maker which model to keep on hand, and note the answer on the card. Medicine does not belong on this shelf. That stays with her, her doctor, and her pharmacist.