I live with 500 other seniors in a senior community. Figure 500 stories of what happened before each got here plus stories of day-to-day doings—and these are what you’ll read in Senior Daze. A friend volunteered this story:
As she was exiting the elevator on the ground floor, a cart full of groceries rolled into her path. “Hey, watch out,” she said, stopping the cart with one hand. She recognized the resident closest to the cart, an elderly man stooped over a walker. She’d often seen him inching his way down corridors. Apparently he’d been bumping the grocery cart forward with his walker with no control over the direction the cart took.
“Here, let me help you,” she said. She pulled the cart onto the elevator toward her. Before she could get around it to exit, the man shuffle-stepped onto the elevator and its door closed. She was going up again. Oh, well, she said to herself.
And Oh, well again when the elevator reached the man’s floor. He’d be all day pushing and bumping to his apartment so she pushed the cart for him. He unlocked his door, entered and dropped into his recliner with a heavy sigh.
“Don’t you want to put your groceries away?” she asked.
“That would be so nice. Thank you,” he said, switching on the television.
What? she thought. Does he think…? Obviously he did. Oh, well, but this is it. And she put away his groceries.
Back down in the lobby, she passed by the concierge desk where a woman was speaking.
“I don’t know what happened,” she said. “My grocery cart was right here.”
My friend looked straight ahead and picked up her pace.
