Favorite Articles of Clothing
SJ has a favorite shirt he loves to wear. It is a bright orange and yellow Hawaiian style shirt. If he sees it as I'm folding it, he likes to put it on. He doesn't care much about clothing other than that particular shirt.
SJ and his shirt make me think of Good Shepherd, a place where I used to work around eighteen years ago. It was a home for developmentally disabled adults. It was a more like a campus. There were around six different houses. The houses were divided according to the functioning ability of the individuals who lived there. The houses were named after trees. I think the house with the lowest functioning adults was Ponderosa and the highest functioning adults were in Cedar. In Ponderosa, all the food had to be blended up for the residents, as none of them chewed. It made me a bit queasy to watch dinner time at Ponderosa. Of course, this was before I had kids and had changed enough poopy diapers to make a trail from one end of the United States to the other. I had not yet been vomited on and crapped on and had boogers wiped on my shoulder.
I eventually began working the graveyard shift. It paid a bit more. Somehow I ended up at Cedar, the most desirable house to be at. The nightshift cleaned and did laundry. There was one lady named Angie that had to go to the bathroom at night a lot. She would yell, "gotta go bathroom!" Then I went to her room to help her and she would say, "need my grasses (glasses)." I helped her get her glasses and make her way to the toilet but I drew the line at wiping her afterwards. That was, of course, more than my gross out factor could tolerate. Honestly, I'm not even sure I could do that now. God bless CNA's.
There was a gentleman there whose name I can't recall who tried to help me with the laundry. There was a huge, industrial washer and a large closet dowel that was used to push the laundry in. He loved to push the laundry with the stick. I enjoyed him a lot.
I think he got kicked out of Cedar House because he kept passing gas instead of holding it in. Apparently he didn't make the "manners" cut. I personally thought that was stupid. He was farting where he lived. Can you tell me any man that doesn't pass gas in his own house?
Those people had no dignity, no privacy and no personal choices. What was a bit of gas? Perhaps it was his own private revolution fired one stink bomb at a time.
There was one gentleman that had a favorite pair of boxers. Every day he wore the same boxers. I thought maybe it was because they always got put on the top of his underwear pile. One night, I buried them on the bottom. The next day he was wearing the same boxers. (That was kind of the point of this rambling story. SJ and his shirt made me think of this man and his boxers.)
This guy loved those boxers. Maybe they were super comfortable. Maybe he liked the look of them. They had a nice plaid pattern to them. They were spiffy for boxers.
My husband is much like that gentleman with his pants. I can go shopping and buy him five pair. Inevitably, I end up washing the same two over and over again. If the fabric doesn't feel just so, he won't wear them. Black pants and navy blue pants in one-hundred percent cotton don't feel the same to him as tan pants in one-hundred percent cotton. I could wash the black pants in hot water fifty times, run over them with the van and pummel them with rocks. It wouldn't matter. They would still never be soft enough to touch his skin.
After ten years of marriage, you surrender to the inevitable.
Thinking of where I worked then versus where I work now (my house) made me think. We are all more alike than we realize, regardless of our physical or mental abilities. It's either that or my family is developementally disabled. You decide.
SJ and his shirt make me think of Good Shepherd, a place where I used to work around eighteen years ago. It was a home for developmentally disabled adults. It was a more like a campus. There were around six different houses. The houses were divided according to the functioning ability of the individuals who lived there. The houses were named after trees. I think the house with the lowest functioning adults was Ponderosa and the highest functioning adults were in Cedar. In Ponderosa, all the food had to be blended up for the residents, as none of them chewed. It made me a bit queasy to watch dinner time at Ponderosa. Of course, this was before I had kids and had changed enough poopy diapers to make a trail from one end of the United States to the other. I had not yet been vomited on and crapped on and had boogers wiped on my shoulder.
I eventually began working the graveyard shift. It paid a bit more. Somehow I ended up at Cedar, the most desirable house to be at. The nightshift cleaned and did laundry. There was one lady named Angie that had to go to the bathroom at night a lot. She would yell, "gotta go bathroom!" Then I went to her room to help her and she would say, "need my grasses (glasses)." I helped her get her glasses and make her way to the toilet but I drew the line at wiping her afterwards. That was, of course, more than my gross out factor could tolerate. Honestly, I'm not even sure I could do that now. God bless CNA's.
There was a gentleman there whose name I can't recall who tried to help me with the laundry. There was a huge, industrial washer and a large closet dowel that was used to push the laundry in. He loved to push the laundry with the stick. I enjoyed him a lot.
I think he got kicked out of Cedar House because he kept passing gas instead of holding it in. Apparently he didn't make the "manners" cut. I personally thought that was stupid. He was farting where he lived. Can you tell me any man that doesn't pass gas in his own house?
Those people had no dignity, no privacy and no personal choices. What was a bit of gas? Perhaps it was his own private revolution fired one stink bomb at a time.
There was one gentleman that had a favorite pair of boxers. Every day he wore the same boxers. I thought maybe it was because they always got put on the top of his underwear pile. One night, I buried them on the bottom. The next day he was wearing the same boxers. (That was kind of the point of this rambling story. SJ and his shirt made me think of this man and his boxers.)
This guy loved those boxers. Maybe they were super comfortable. Maybe he liked the look of them. They had a nice plaid pattern to them. They were spiffy for boxers.
My husband is much like that gentleman with his pants. I can go shopping and buy him five pair. Inevitably, I end up washing the same two over and over again. If the fabric doesn't feel just so, he won't wear them. Black pants and navy blue pants in one-hundred percent cotton don't feel the same to him as tan pants in one-hundred percent cotton. I could wash the black pants in hot water fifty times, run over them with the van and pummel them with rocks. It wouldn't matter. They would still never be soft enough to touch his skin.
After ten years of marriage, you surrender to the inevitable.
Thinking of where I worked then versus where I work now (my house) made me think. We are all more alike than we realize, regardless of our physical or mental abilities. It's either that or my family is developementally disabled. You decide.
posted by Caro at 7:41 PM
4 Comments:
I think your family members are all just plain crazy.
'Cept me, I ain't crazy.
I have decided.
I'ts just as much fun to read the comments as the blog! Do you think Mr. Man likes the bright colors? I'm sure we could find some similar to it. Put a picture on of him in it.
My husband is exactly the same! He is so fussy about his clothes. I bought three pairs of pants - identical except for color. He wears one; I had to return the other (they just "weren't right." The third pair is still in the original wrapping, even though they are IDENTICAL to the ones I wash week after week except they're tan and not dark grey. Hi sshirts aren't as bad, but did I mention the man refuses to sleep on plain sheets? He likes patterned ones. I lean towards soft hues or neutrals, 100% cotton, at least 300-thread-count; he just needs pattern. Weirdos. All of them.
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