The Man in the Shower Stall

The day was filled with crisp sunshine---the kind that leaves strong contrasts between the blueish gray shadows and the sparkling brightness of clean, white snow that fell the night before. I was alone in the cafe` eating a bowl of cauliflower soup so I hardly noticed the pristine beauty outside the window. I was enjoyed a rare moment around my continuum care campus when I got to write longhand in my notebook, the way I used to do at the Guy Land Cafeteria. I could see a gathering of office workers out in the lobby but they didn’t bother me nor did the concierge lady sitting on the other side of a glass wall. The maintenance men were setting up chairs in front of the fireplace for the Resident Dialogue meeting. I came down for an early lunch so afterward I could nab one of the chairs nearest to the roaring fire before the meeting got started. It’s the warmest place I’ve been able to find on these fridge Michigan days. The high that day was 12 degrees.

Our CEO opened the meeting up with a joke about how in the military they’d call meetings like this ‘Pitch-and-Bitch’ sessions but he prefers Resident Dialogue which is better than what he calls our cleaning services around here which is Environment Services. Don’t think that didn’t have us all scratching our heads, thinking it had something to do with recycling. At the meeting we were introduced to a new cleaning lady who is actually a black guy in his mid-twenties, a handsome young man who looks like he could grace the cover of a fitness magazine and, no, I have not imagined him without his shirt on. I’ll save that fantasy for warmer weather. 

So there I was with that inappropriate thought about a shirtless cleaning guy tucked in the back of my head when out of the blue someone at the dinner table that night said she didn’t think the Environmental Service guy will fit in her shower. I was shocked thinking her mind had taken her deeper into Fantasy Land than I had gone but then she added, “He’s too big to get down on his hands and knees to scrub that floor.” After getting my head out of the proverbial gutter, my next thought was that she’s more delusional than I am because I seriously don’t think any cleaning person in a place like this is going to do corners and grout to satisfy a bunch of women who’ve been cleaning their own homes for 50-60 plus years. At the meeting a couple of people tried to talk the CEO into letting them clean their own apartments and knock $40 off their monthly maintenance fee but it was a hard ‘NO!’ to that suggestion. I wasn’t surprised. Call me paranoid but I’m guessing the mandatory cleaning service person also looks for old people issues that are signs of trouble ahead: hoarding, rotten food piling up, burners left on, use of candles or Voodoo Dolls, signs of rodents, bugs and pet neglect. Fine by me if Big Brother is watching. I didn’t move here to live off the grid which it felt like I was doing before with the lack of human contact I was getting.

Remember the campus pastor who was in my painting class and I wanted to nickname her Miss Labradoodle but I didn’t out of fear that readers who aren’t ‘dog people’ wouldn’t recognize that as a high compliment? Labradoodles are friendly and sweet and always eager to please so I named her Ms Angel instead. She spoke at the Residents Dialogue meeting about a weekly thing she's starting. 

It's a fifteen minute guided meditation that is centered on nurturing spiritual grown withing ourselves" and it's open to people of all faiths or "no faith if you're a searcher." A searcher? How’s that for a new label and canned answer for me to use when I’m asked the Dreaded Church Question? “I’m a searcher.” Ohmygod that woman could have me turning in my Agnostic Club card if I’m exposed to her often enough. Thankfully we don’t live in the same building because with the exception of her calling as a pastor I want to be just like her when I grow up. She reminds me of my dad, always willing and able to extinguish any negative energy floating about.

On our schedule today is a live-steaming event billed as ‘Keeping It Nuanced: How to Have Grace-Filled Political Conversations.’ I’d love to go to that but today is the first time in awhile that the temperatures are going to be high enough for me to venture out to the big box grocery store. Those temperatures in the teens and below are too hard on my lungs. So I’m off to where it’s going to kill me to buy a muffin pan and a humidifier because I had both before the Big Downsizing of 2021. ©