Politics, Death And The Holiday Inn From Hell
No election newslessness today. I am officially tired of the whole thing (and am considering never listening to NPR again after what I had to listen to today from Andy Frume [double bastard], who had the temerity and down-right republicanism {although I know that’s not fair to say} to suggest that the Democratic lawyers in Walker and Seminole counties are the ones to blame for this most recent chapter of the saga; as if the fact that… Oh, wait, I wasn’t going to do this today…right), and will therefore avoid discussion of it.
There has been an awful lot of talk about death around my office lately. My boss’s best friend is in the end stages of cancer, and could die any day now. My secretary and I were discussing her own parent’s deaths several years ago, and the difficulties they had about nursing homes (they got lucky and had family and friends who could help out while everyone was working, so no nursing homes) and just the process of losing your mother and father. Yikes. I am thankful that my parents are so young, and pray that I won’t have to deal with this sort of thing for a long, long time.
In other news, I witnessed something completely disgusting yesterday, and I feel compelled to share. I had to facilitate a planning session for a credit union in North Alabama, in Decatur. Not exactly a metropolis, but not exactly a small town, either. Anyway, I went to what I can only describe as the Holiday Inn From Hell.
Really, I felt like I was in a Stephen King novel the whole time, I just couldn’t figure out which one, so I was freaking out wondering how I was going to die. Not that anything bad happened, or that the staff was mean or anything like that, there was just a feeling, a foreboding about the place; it was gloomy, poor lighting, waaaay out worst-of-the-50’s-architecture-with-an-update-in-the-worst-of-the-70’s…you get the picture. Yuck.
Anyway, while I was there, I had to use the restroom, so I go in, use the restroom, and walk to the sink to wash my hands. Now, there was a group at the hotel from Briggs and Stratton, they (I think) manufacture and repair machine parts. So there was a group of 200 machinists down the hall from us. One of them walkes up next to me to was his hands. Now, I’m already freaked out about this place, so I’m not looking at other people or making any kind of eye contact.
I’m just washing my hands; when I hear this wet kind of pop sound, like when a suction cup is released. Without thinking, I turn, and this ancient old man in overalls is cleaning his teeth in the sink. His false teeth. All of them. Two sets of gums, two sets of teeth. And he was going that chewing motion with his mouth, like a cow.
So, you say, that’s not so bad, lots of people have false teeth, and most have the decency not to clean them in public restrooms. And, besides, your post is starting to sound like agism.
It is not agism. I like old people, I plan to become one. Just not like this guy. And, it gets better. He started spitting. Not the excuse-me-I’m-having-a-bad-phlegm-day kind, but the long-sticky I’ve-been-chewing-tobacco-and-mucus-four-hours kind. He’s spitting. On his hands, and on his teeth.
I stopped washing my hands, and I left.
