Things they never told me about getting old Page 4

Surely a sitcom or a reality show in that?

Quote: fopdoodle @ 27th March 2017, 12:32 AM

I must have missed the Benny Hill Show/Carry On film that everyone else watched today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg

Quote: Kenneth @ 27th March 2017, 5:19 AM

Surely a sitcom or a reality show in that?

Yes! You must write it Davida.

Probably! I think the world of elderly people in care homes is a largely untapped comedic well. There's Derrick, but that's not true to reality at all, is overly sanitized and leaves out the real juicy stuff-- the stuff involving bodily fluids, feces, and dementia, for a start. People get so squeamish about those things though. It's a horrendous illness, of course, but to me that's not a good reason not to talk about it and to make light of the humorous situations it can give rise to. I think it could be done well without being in poor taste but people are too scared to go there for silly PC reasons, or maybe they think old people are boring? That is just so not the case.

There's one lady whose rambling word salad stories I could listen to for hours. She's hysterical not just to me, but she cracks herself up and gets as surprised and delighted by what comes out of her mouth as I get. Here's a little snippet of one of her stories that I recorded the other day. I wish you could hear her voice and inflection and adorable southern accent. She gets really into what she's saying as she says it and really goes for it. Here's it is: "I wish she'd loan the other Summer like here. And then she'll ask him, oh! Where's your Summer? And then pretend that I was the one that...and then, well, he was it a lot of things, and then so, anyway...I said to the photographer, well, how big is your photographer!? Or something like that. Oh, not that one, y'know, or something like that and the other woman who was over there... And he talked to the...they. I knew it was so a thane lacksumdin? (sic) Anyway, I wanted THAT man, the man that was over there by the doors of the house NOW. He's been there, I dunno, a couple a miles, or so. And he was to get this lead of, lead of, lead of, pipe! And it's REALLY causing a lotta lottle lotta water. Well there's IS, there's like an indian rig or something...smaller. Ooh! You're gonna have to roll me out with the carpet. Well?"

Not her best material...Some of the phrases that come out of her mouth really are gems.

I had an idea a while back for a reality show for the distant future. I'd call it "Shit in space". And it would be documenting life in a zero-grav nursing home. Imagine the possibilities for zero-gravity toilet humor! (Probably a terrible idea, and definitely would never actually work, but I'd watch it if it were a thing.)

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 27th March 2017, 8:50 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg

Yes! You must write it Davida.

I should! But alas, I'm pretty sure I'm deeply unfunny. And also lazy.

OK Sick you're opening para was enough for me.

I remember seeing a documentary many moons ago about a dementia ward with elderly people walking about wearing large nappies - how those nurses could do that job is beyond me.

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 27th March 2017, 8:57 AM

OK Sick you're opening para was enough for me.

I remember seeing a documentary many moons ago about a dementia ward with elderly people walking about wearing large nappies - how those nurses could do that job is beyond me.

Ha, sorry! So you're one of the squeamish ones I take it, then. Fair enough.

Honestly, you get really used to dealing with other people's shit (literally) really quickly. You know the trope of morticians eating their lunch while in the same room as a corpse and not being bothered? Well, there's a similar phenomenon of caregivers shit-talking (again literally) with one another in lurid detail during their lunch breaks.

Before my mother had to go into care (for repeatedly wandering the streets in her night clothes), I was driven daft by many of her doings. I used to tell myself that one day I'd look back on it and laugh - I'm not quite there yet with everything, but I do still snigger at the time she had some poor apprentice (who was working in the building) clambering up onto the huge communal bin to look for her false teeth which she'd lost. That was after she's been convinced she'd swallowed them. Eventually I found them under her bed.

And since you like shit stories, Davida, there was also the time, when she was in the care home, that I opened the top drawer in her bedside table, and there, staring up at me, were two small turds. To my shame, I quickly shut the drawer and told myself I hadn't seen anything. A nice surprise for the carers. I still feel guilty about that.

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 27th March 2017, 8:57 AM

OK Sick you're opening para was enough for me.

I remember seeing a documentary many moons ago about a dementia ward with elderly people walking about wearing large nappies - how those nurses could do that job is beyond me.

There should be a euthanasia pill available legally when it's my time, or well before then as I'm only 52.

My Father suffered so much that had he been a dog, he would have been put to sleep, but as he was human, despite the fact he was dying, they had to let him starve and die of thirst which took 2 weeks, and months prior to that of me running up and downstairs to check on him day and night at home with virtually no sleep, which impaired my ability to look after him.

I would have given him a pill without hesitation - and I'd like to put anyone who disagrees in my shoes for 5 minutes as it's beyond harrowing.

So I shall have a kit for when my quality of life is no longer there, with some way of turning myself to dust afterwards - cos I'm tidy like that and don't expect anyone to clean up after me while alive, so why should they after I'm dead?

Quote: Davida Grimes @ 27th March 2017, 9:27 AM

Ha, sorry! So you're one of the squeamish ones I take it, then. Fair enough.

You got me! :D And to my shame (yes, I know!) I never changed a nappy on one of my children as I simply could not help retching - there would have been more in the nappy when and if I manage to finish. Can't help it - other people's personal fluids just do it for me, BUT very oddly I have rodded (?) out many a sewer/cess pit in my time and haven't given it too much thought. So on reflection it must be something to do with a personal thing.

About a year ago one of my wife's carers wondered why I couldn't empty her commode pot and said to me "It's only water, dear"....................no it ain't - it's piss. Sick

Quote: fopdoodle @ 27th March 2017, 11:18 AM

There should be a euthanasia pill available legally when it's my time, or well before then as I'm only 52.

Couldn't agree more. I think it is disgusting that people cannot be allowed to go with a bit of dignity when they want to. OK, you may not/certainly will not be aware of your surroundings then, but if you have signed something now, you should be allowed a "time to go" pill.

It's my life and I'll do what I want with it - not some doctor/lawyer/do-gooder arse ache. Hear me all you "specialists" - F**k Off!!!

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 27th March 2017, 11:45 AM

Couldn't agree more. I think it is disgusting that people cannot be allowed to go with a bit of dignity when they want to. OK, you may not/certainly will not be aware of your surroundings then, but if you have signed something now, you should be allowed a "time to go" pill.

It's my life and I'll do what I want with it - not some doctor/lawyer/do-gooder arse ache. Hear me all you "specialists" - F**k Off!!!

For me, it's when your sense of humour goes. One can cope with a lot if sense of humour still there - and my brilliant and funny and amazing late Father still had it after he knew he was on the way out, but then the pain kicked in and I was calling for NHS assistance round the clock, even just to pick him up off the floor. How much that cost during the last month or so, I have no idea, but what a waste of resources . . . and I'm not saying I COULD have smothered him if it were legal as I loved him far too much to cause him any further suffering at my hands, but I now completely understand why some people do.

Fopdoodle and HGT (or HGV to the ladies) enough of your flirtatious talk about euthanasia, there are good things about getting old. For example I no longer need to spend too much time and money on getting the image right. There's a generic "over the hill" image, supported by most Charity Shops. Don't even need to try cloths on to get that sh*t chic look.

Quote: keewik @ 27th March 2017, 9:58 AM

I opened the top drawer in her bedside table, and there, staring up at me, were two small turds.

So the French have an inspection ledge on their toilets and the Scottish have added a draw ? Alexandra Bell eat your hart out. You should take your posh poo invention on Dragons Den.

Quote: Firkin @ 27th March 2017, 2:12 PM

Fopdoodle and HGT (or HGV to the ladies) enough of your flirtatious talk about euthanasia, there are good things about getting old.

The ONLY thing for me is having lost so much hair I now have a (speaking of shit as we were) No. 2 all over and now when I get out of bed in the morning my hair is exactly as it was before I got into it and requires zero maintenance - far better than when I was in my 20s/30s/40s when I used to spend many effin' minutes trying to get some effin' wisp of hair to stay flat on my head! Angry

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 27th March 2017, 2:42 PM

The ONLY thing for me is having lost so much hair I now have a (speaking of shit as we were) No. 2 all over and now when I get out of bed in the morning my hair is exactly as it was before I got into it and requires zero maintenance - far better than when I was in my 20s/30s/40s when I used to spend many effin' minutes trying to get some effin' wisp of hair to stay flat on my head! Angry

. . . and there are hats too if one is self conscious! But my hair started falling out due to bereavement stress, so for first time in my life I bought some clip-in false hair to hide the patches. There just isn't the stigma any longer, and even 'rugs' for men are so much better than they used to be . . . whatever it takes . . . and I also have many hats now for when I just want to hide or not bother combing it!

Quote: Firkin @ 27th March 2017, 2:12 PM

So the French have an inspection ledge on their toilets and the Scottish have added a draw ? Alexandra Bell eat your hart out. You should take your posh poo invention on Dragons Den.

Laughing out loudLaughing out loudLaughing out loud

Quote: fopdoodle @ 27th March 2017, 3:02 PM

. . . and there are hats too if one is self conscious! But my hair started falling out due to bereavement stress, so for first time in my life I bought some clip-in false hair to hide the patches. There just isn't the stigma any longer, and even 'rugs' for men are so much better than they used to be . . . whatever it takes . . . and I also have many hats now for when I just want to hide or not bother combing it!

No, no, no..........even at my age I still say when you are out and about in your car, NEVER trust anyone also driving a car who is wearing a hat.
It'll either be some old half blind codger in his Sunday Best flat cap taking Doris out for a Sunday spin in the rush hour at 5.00pm on a Friday after doing the shopping at Sainsbury's and decided to "have a look at those new houses they've built near where Mabel lives" or some Gary Boy with his baseball cap on back to front showing off to his mates since he got his full driving licence last week, OR (dare I say it) some four foot nothing woman (hat or sans) only just managing to peer over the steering wheel of her BMW tank, which she drives because she feels safer in it - f**k everyone else and the environment.

Quote: Firkin @ 27th March 2017, 2:12 PM

So the French have an inspection ledge on their toilets?

The Germans are famous for it, and I know because I married one (a bloke, not an inspection ledge).

Quote: Firkin @ 27th March 2017, 2:12 PM

Fopdoodle and HGT (or HGV to the ladies) enough of your flirtatious talk about euthanasia, there are good things about getting old.

Okay, that's true, because when we're younger, we spend so much time defining ourselves by what others think of us, that we don't actually recognise how amazing we might be from our own self belief . . . so when we do realise, we, ironically, no longer care what others think!

Perhaps because we have become deluded in our own self image, but better that than being insecure, though maybe that's just me . . .

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 27th March 2017, 4:28 PM

No, no, no..........even at my age I still say when you are out and about in your car, NEVER trust anyone also driving a car who is wearing a hat.
It'll either be some old half blind codger in his Sunday Best flat cap taking Doris out for a Sunday spin in the rush hour at 5.00pm on a Friday after doing the shopping at Sainsbury's and decided to "have a look at those new houses they've built near where Mabel lives" or some Gary Boy with his baseball cap on back to front showing off to his mates since he got his full driving licence last week, OR (dare I say it) some four foot nothing woman (hat or sans) only just managing to peer over the steering wheel of her BMW tank, which she drives because she feels safer in it - f**k everyone else and the environment.

Okay . . .