Maybe it has something to do with loosing a great deal of independence in a very short time, but minor infractions of etiquette can quickly be transformed into a Very Big Deal within the environs of a nursing home.
Just the other day I politely asked another resident to move a couple of inches so that I could wheel myself to my destination.
"Go around the other way," she snapped at me, pointing a bony finger to a path that would have taken me 35 yards out of my way to get where I wanted to go. Incidents like this are not a rarity inside a nursing home. When a great deal of self-determination is lost people tend to cling to whatever tattered remnants of independence remain.
Nowhere is this feisty attitude more in evidence than at meal times.
"You know why they call this stuff punch," one resident asked rhetorically after sampling with distaste a magenta-hewed beverage. "They call it punch because it makes you want to punch the person who made it."
Just tonight at dinner, one resident took exception to the fact that he had not yet received his flatware.
"If I don’t get my silverware in the next 10 seconds I’m going to throw all this shit on the floor," he barked.
As I watched this mini-drama unfold all I could think was that an individual who requires assistance in placing a bib around his neck really lacks sufficient clout to be a real threat.
Food remains a Very Big Deal even when residents are away from the facility. I accompanied a number of senior residents to a local restaurant as part of a group outing on Tuesday. These are people whose meal time choices have been restricted to two items – a main dish and an alternate menu for years. Suddenly they were confronted with dozens of choices, with many mutations of the entrees possible. You could just about see the neurons and synapses getting overloaded from the selection available.
One resident Hoovered down three glasses of V8 juice in rapid succession. His thirst for a beverage he could not receive at the home nearly caused him to exceed his budget for the lunch. Another resident labored mightily over the menu for some 45 minutes before selecting a salad. Still another resident ordered up fried eggs and sausage, only to complain that the eggs were soft-fried not hard-fried as she wanted.
And when the meals finally arrived, the residents were overwhelmed once again. The meals were being served hot (with the exception of the salad, of course).
"Are you sure your systems will be able to handle actual hot food?" I asked my fellow dinners.
"What’s the matter," a nursing home staffer asked. "Isn’t the food we serve hot?"
"Well mine typically comes out about room temperature," I responded.
"Of course, since room temperature tends to remain at about 85 degrees, I guess that’s not too bad."
When I think about the incidents I have seen during meal times (which I tend to refer to meals as "feeding time at the zoo"), I am reminded of the parable of the servant whose master forgave him a significant debt. Instead of rejoicing and forgiving others who owed him money, the servant berated his debtors harshly in an attempt to be repaid. I surmise that if the servant had really understood that his debt was repaid, he would not have sweated the relatively paltry sums he was due.
In a similar way I suspect that, if many of the people around me were capable of counting their blessings, the relatively minor infractions that inevitably occur when people are thrust together would be forgiven. Maybe it’s the fact that their lives are so controlled by external forces that they want to hold on to as many of their perceived rights as they can.
And in a larger sense don’t too many of us hold on to our perceived rights even after we know our debt has been canceled from on high?
Consider it food for thought.