Screw It

You can go anywhere these days and will notice people’s eyeballs are glued to screens – at the bus stop, mall, restaurant or even while sitting in the dentist’s chair. While on vacation it was refreshing to observe everyone reading a book around the pool, except everyone was sitting around the pool and no one was in the pool…

As much as I would love to poke fun at the holidaying seniors (keyword: seniors) for roasting in the sun, I read three and a half books while on vacation, so perhaps I also spent some time on the sidelines of the pool. By perhaps I mean, some days I would spend two or more hours at the pool and my toes were never wet, except from sweat. 

My belief is that no one was in the pool because our pool should have been titled “The Pool of No Fun”. There were no water floatation devices allowed, no food/drink, no laughter (it didn’t actually state no laughter, but basing on the glares we received from the old foggies, it might as well should have). 

On our last day we should have arrived with a ball, blow up tube, seven children, a pizza and a bottle of wine… 

In I’m Late for Very Important Date, I was clearly late. Today I was in the right place at the right time.

The downside of working with seniors is of course coping with death, which is why we have Pain and Palliative Nurses who support individuals and his/her families during such time. 

There was one particular resident who felt his time was coming and all he wished for was to have his family surrounding his bedside, sharing a bottle of wine. Now, this is the right way to do it. 

The Palliative Care Nurse wanted to make certain that this wish was granted, but there was one problem, she did not have a corkscrew to open the wine.

She approached me and asked if we had one in our pub area. To her dismay, our wine comes in a box (our wine is the classy kind –  it starts with “w” and ends in “ine”). 

I searched, but there was no corkscrew to be found. 

It suddenly dawned on me. “You know, I do have a corkscrew in my purse,” I stated. (In my defence it was a small hotel one, not a big honker with all of the bells and whistles). 

Surprisingly there was zero judgement in her eyes when she said, “well that would work!” 

She quickly added, “don’t worry, I promise I will return it”.

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