Today I feel like ranting.
This whole week I’ve felt like ranting. I curse the plaques and tangles in the brain — and who knows what else — that cause Alzheimer’s disease. I cry one minute, and put on my brave face the next. I go for a walk. I drink a glass of wine. I contemplate driving to See’s Candy and eating an entire pound of chocolates.
Most of all I sit and endure. After many years of watching someone I love enter dementia, now I witness their abilities deteriorate further.
There are so many reasons to be angry, yet ranting doesn’t make any of it better. But so what? It feels good to rant. And the easiest thing of all for me to rant about is … restrooms.
I hate modern restrooms and that’s “Hate” with a capital “H.” I’m not talking about the bathrooms in our homes, I mean public restrooms with all of their new-fangled-automatic-flush-and-freak-you-out sensors.
What’s wrong with an old fashioned soap pump? Answer me, Universe! Don’t talk to me about germs because I’m not in the mood to listen.
If you are a person with memory impairment think of how confusing these new restrooms can be. The soap dispenser doesn’t look like soap dispenser of your childhood. There’s no visible way to turn on the water. And the towel dispenser? Good luck with that one.
How did we morph into a present where the facilities for the most basic of human functions could look so foreign to an estimated 5.3 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s. Yes, that’s right: 5.3 million Americans. According to the Alzheimer’s Association every 67 seconds someone new develops this disease.
Those numbers are too hard for me to think about right now, but it’s easy to rant about public restrooms.
It’s not just older people who have trouble with the new improvements, it’s younger people too. If you’ve ever helped a 3-year-old wash her hands with one of those fancy sinks you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Little kids aren’t big enough to activate the sensors. They can’t get the soap or water to work. So Mom or Dad has to help them dispense the soap, get the water going, and then keep the water running long enough for the child to wash his or her hands. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Big hands get in the way of little hands and you end up waving your arms around the porcelain.
Then, after that ordeal is finally over, your loved one faces the automated hand drier that clearly looks and sounds like it will eat your arms.
What’s wrong with the older models of hand driers? You know the ones I mean. They were white boxes with silver blowers. They used to work just fine.
I remember.
So, yes, restrooms. I really hate restrooms. I wish all of them could go back in time to a place where things made sense.
Jennifer Bardsley is an Edmonds mom of two. Find her on Twitter @jennbardsley and at www.heraldnet.com/ibrakeformoms and teachingmybabytoread.com.
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