I’ve never been in an Uber before but just that afternoon I’d set up an account and downloaded the app because both times Ms. Social Worker went to ER she had to come back home in an Uber because no one here who offered to pick her up was answering their phones to an unknown number. She’s been using the service for a couple of years so other than the high cost of getting around that way, it wasn’t that big of a deal for her to leave the hospital in an Uber. I thought about being in her shoes and it would be a big deal for me thus I set up the Uber account and hope I never have to use it. I figured if I’m ever in that situation my brain would be too fogged up to jump through those sign-up hoops and boy was I right. After being at Urgent Care for two and a half hours Ms. Social Worker couldn’t figure out how to use the damn app she’d been using for two years. I was starting to panic. I couldn’t read on her tiny phone to see if I could figure it out and I didn’t want to order a ride with mine for fear we’d both be successful at the same time and two cars would show up. Finally after fifteen whole minutes she got it to work and then she claimed she had to charge half the ride to me. Say what? Why?
Both our to and from Uber drivers where in their early 30s---big, dark black guys who were super nice to us granny types and I got to sit in the front seat with both because their cars where too small to get my friend’s walker in the trunks. It went in the back seat with her. What is it with black guys and gold chains? Watching baseball this summer I noticed most of the black players were decked out with gold chains that I’m sure where real gold. I’m not so sure I can say that about those on the Uber drivers and if they are no wonder the fares are so high. Ms. Social Worker claims taking Ubers is cheaper than owning your own car and she might be right on that. Even though I don’t drive much anymore I dread the day when I might have to give it up. Don’t we all dread that day as we age? I dread it but I won't fight it. But maybe you’re like so many seniors who refused to admit their driving skills and/or health dictates they're a danger on the roads. And before someone asks, assisted living gets transportation here on the continuum care campus but not in the independent living section. Our Resident Council hopes to change that. Have I told you lately how happy I am that I opted out of being part of that council? They do love their meetings.
The latest thing the Council came up with is a contest to name our two new robots. The food service bought them for an ungodly amount of money. I can’t remember if it was fifteen thousand a piece to buy them or to rent them but we’ve only had them a week and already one ran into a cart of dishes and crashed a lot of them to the floor and soup gets slopped over the edges of the bowls. For the contest we have to pay five bucks for each pair of entries we suggest but the winner will get half the jackpot and the other half goes to the benevolent fund. The entries will get voted on by mostly the people in management with the guy who came up with the idea being the only resident to vote. I’m going to enter Elvis and Priscilla plus Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia (Luke and Leia for short) and Wilma and Fred Flintstone.
One day at lunch the server announced that the robots arrived and someone asked if they were boys or girls and he said “One is male and other is nonbinary.” You would not believe the argument/debate that happened afterward and continued for over an hour when one of our more ‘colorful’ residents said she didn’t believe in that "nonbinary crap."
"A person is male or female and that’s it!” she said in no uncertain terms.
I told her she needed a biology lesson and that there are people born with the genitalia of one sex but the brain wiring of the opposite sex---usually looking male but being wired as a female. I had recently read a research article at 23 & Me about how that happens in the development of a fetus and I explained it to her in great detail. Two others at the table backed me up and 4-5 others seemed fascinated by stuff they hadn't heard before. Ms. Colorful was her normal closed-mind self and went on to blame child sexual abuse on society for making up new words up like 'nonbinary.' She’s a Fox and Trump fan so, of course, that makes sense to her. I had a really good time debating that day because it wasn’t politics yet I could talk back to her in a knowledgeable way I wouldn’t do with current events. And I was having a good 'word' day speech wise.
But it is a topic more current than I thought it was because a few days later when I was at Urgent Care with my friend the form she filled out asked her to check a box: male, female or nonbinary. I had told Ms. Colorful she was a bully for not acknowledging that people with ambiguous genitalia exist and that ‘nonbinary’ is just a word for something that’s been around since time began. But I’ve got to admit I was shocked to see it as a choice on a medical form. It made me laugh out loud.
Living in a sandbox full of fully developed people with all our personality tics, foibles and life experiences sure can be interesting in a walk-through-a-mine-field kind of way. Remind me someday to write about the guy living here who is a big prude baby who put his hands over his ears when anything that isn't sunshine and rainbows is mentioned. ©
