Because one can’t talk about porta-potties enough, yes, I have another story involving a porta-potty. Yup. Don’t read during a meal or directly following having anything to eat. It’s one of those. You have been warned.
I have mentioned my dear Grandma Dorothy before. She has passed, but not a single family get-together goes by that we do not fondly recall her crazy antics or reminisce about her depression-era perseverance. She is still a very important part of our lives, she just lives on through our favorite repeated stories.
After my mother read my “Porta Poop” post, she insisted I had to write about my grandmother’s experience with a porta-potty. It it one of our favorite stories, so I have to share it.
Disclaimer: My grandmother suffered from dementia. She was disoriented 99% of the time and I, in no way, condone laughing at someone suffering such a cruel disease. Why my family finds this particular event humorous is simply due to it being fucking funny, and because, if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. We knew she would have preferred we spent her last years laughing, rather than crying. She loved to laugh, and thus we did.
Before my grandmother got really bad, before she attempted to eat her false teeth, and before we sadly had to move her into a home, my mother and aunt would take her on day-long car trips. Even after her dementia settled in for good, she could point out her favorite make and model of car. She loved to ride for hours just looking, watching.
While adventuring to God-knows-where and for God-knows how long, a pit stop was in order. Because my family is the type to use a random porta-poop, they didn’t even think twice about doing their business in one on the side of the road in BFE.
They got Grams to go in and insisted it was a safe place (I still think that was a cruel, cruel lie), so she entered without too much complaint.
After what seemed an exponentially long amount of time, my aunt knocked on the blue door to see how Grams was getting on.
Grandma’s response: “I’m washing my hands and I just can’t seem to get this soap to lather”.
I can only imagine how my aunt’s expression changed from confusion to complete horror.
Aunt Dana: “Ma, you must be mistaken, there is no sink in there”. I’m sure she was praying hard that she just misheard.
No. She did not mishear.
Grandma: “Yes, there’s this nice, little sink in here, with this pretty pink soap. It just won’t get soapy”.
In case you haven’t caught on:
SHE WAS “WASHING” HER HANDS IN A URINAL, WITH A URINAL CAKE.
I still can’t even. I’m gagging right now.
In utter panic mode, my aunt attempted to coax Gramdma out of the porta-potty with as calm a voice as possible.
My mom was waiting in the car and suddenly saw a blur of Grandma and Dana, reeling down the hill from porta-hell. My aunt had my grandma by her wrists and she was holding her arms as far from her as humanly possible. She was yelling as if someone just got murdered. My mom opened the door and all she heard was:
“URINAL CAKE! WIPES! URINAL CAKE! GOOD GOD, LORD ALMIGHTY!”
After they wiped every square inch of my grandmother off with wipes, Grams says: “I don’t understand what the fuss was about. It was a perfectly good sink. And perfectly good soap!”
That day, we were glad she had dementia. I don’t think anyone would recover from learning they had gotten down to business with a urinal cake.
Sometimes dementia is good, but only when it involves porta-potties, urinals and “special” soap.
Tag: Grandma
Harvey
Harvey: I’m-m-m-m gonna w-w-w-whoop yer a-a-a-ass at cards.
Wayne: OK, sir. I bet you will. That’s a mighty fine hat you have there (referring to the man’s fabulous, pointy Andes-style earflap hat colored pink and turquoise) Can you tell me about it?
Harvey: Oh, this h-h-h-hat is, is mighty f-i-i-i-ne. It covers m-m-m-my bald spot!
Wayne: That does make a hat pretty useful.
Attendant: Harvey, tell him what your hat is really for.
Harvey: It’s r-r-r-really (as he moves in close to whisper) a ch-ch-ch-chick m-a-a-agnet.
Harvey laughs so hard, the attendant caring for him has to turn his oxygen back on.
This was an honest-to-goodness coversation had between my boyfriend and an elderly man who had to be pushing 100.
My grandma passed away two years ago after years of battling dementia, a cruel, truly demented disease. My grandma died many years before we laid her to rest. Dementia robbed her of her memories, her ability to reason, her ability to know her own children. It wasn’t until the grandma I knew and loved was gone from her blue eyes did I realize what I had lost.
Every single day, I drive downtown and I see elderly men and women living on the streets. I watch, long before I pass, to make sure they make it, slowly, across the street. They are in rags held together by their own filth. They are cold, hot, confused and beyond mistreated.
Why are our elderly living on the streets, abused in retirement homes, and left to rot in the back bedroom? Being of advanced age should be an honor, not a curse feared worse than leprosy (or is ebola a more relevant disease?). Being the elder should come with built-in respect and hospitality. We should be housing our grandparents in accomodations far better than our own. We should be teaching our youth to revere them like gods. They are our past and our future. They are old and wrinkly. They can be as mean as a dog shitting tacks, and they are painfully slow. They are also brilliant and worldly. They know what it means to do without and still find happiness. They understand and love a world without TV, without smartphones, a world in which you sat down and wrote a damn letter. In cursive. We have so much to learn from our elderly, yet they are withering away in our streets and in dusty rooms under lock and key.
I would give anything to go back to my 8-year-old self, during the summer it was just me and Grams at the cabin. I would slow down and really taste her tomato and noodle soup. I would take off my discman headphones and listen to her story about Grandpa. I would make my bed and vacuum without being asked. I would scoop her a bowl of ice cream and add the dry Nesquick she liked so much. I would wash the Ziplock baggies without complaining. I would take her dry, soft, wrinkled hand in mine and say, “Let’s go pick honeysuckle, Grandma, just you and me”.
To have been able to witness the exchange between Harvey and my boyfriend would have been a real treasure. Just two young lads relating about the trials of life, love and the pursuit of women. Just two young lads.