Can I show you something private? He said, and it made me afraid

 

It was a peculiar question. My neighbour had looked suddenly shifty. Everything had gone well up to that point. I wanted to apply for my over-65 bus and train ticket. Here in Northern Ireland, when you reach that age, you can travel free on all buses and trains, even down to Dublin! It required someone you were not related to to sign the application form.  So I chose my neighbor two doors down, as we had been reasonably friendly at a distance. We would wave at each other through windows or if passing on foot or as our cars passed, so not exactly friendly, but an acquaintance. After I knocked on my neighbour’s door he'd invited me into his tidy living room. Unusual in my experience to find everything in place with a neat pile of books on the table beside his armchair. His wife had died some years earlier and I'd expected chaos but no, he was obviously a tidy person. More importantly he'd been happy to sign my form and fill in the details after he had found his glasses and his hearing aids. 

I thanked him profusely and was getting ready to leave when he looked at me oddly as if assessing me in some way. Then he walked to his rear door leading away to a back room and paused with his hand on the door and said, 

“Can I show you something private?” 

This I have to admit caused me some alarm as I was not at all sure I wanted him to show me anything private at all. We stood in a strange awkward silence as I wrestled with my gratitude for him signing my form with deep unease about being shown into the rear of his property. He said,

“It will have to be our secret, you understand? 

This sounded even worse. The word private was already triggering alarm bells but keeping secrets was what paedophiles said or serial abusers. A perfectly innocent afternoon was turning into something altogether sinister. He opened the door to his back room and gestured for me to enter. I'd just got comfortable in my neighbours living room after all had never entered his house before this. Everything seemed to be going pear shaped for me. He repeated,

“Come in, come in but don't tell anyone!”

This was said with some vehemance as well as persistence. It was politeness more than anything else that had me following him into his back room. Things could become nasty in a minute and I readied myself. I never pass a dog or a human without wandering if I could kill them if necessary. Yes, odd I know, but my life has taken many unexpected terms and a readiness to defend myself to the death has become part of my nature. 

I find myself ushered into a back room that opened out into a sunroom and in that space were eight full-sized motorbikes. As he showed me around he explained he used to drive the bikes to competitions in his younger days. These great gleaming machines would compete with others up and down the country. The tidy living room now made sense. 

Such meticulous attention to detail has its rewards, no wonder it had become second nature. I also suddenly understood why this had to be kept secret. These bikes were very expensive. People knowing such riches lay in his house could target this pensioner.

I was simply so relieved that there was nothing untoward being planned and enthusatiatically admired each and every model.  We parted real friends not acquaintences. In this world where women are so often targeted by men inappropriately and even voilently how often does politeness do us no favours. It can all too easily be interpreted as willingness or acquiescence by the male. But the whole episode reminded me too that all the men in my life have shown kindness and consideration.  It made me suddenly want to thank each and every male of the species that has demonstrated gentle courtesy to women as if it was our birthright.  There are so many more of such men out there than we think!

Darnell strikes a low blow

‘Millions of women have bladder leaks let’s talk about it’, proclaimed a leaflet dropped through my mum’s letterbox this week. Strangely, despite being 89 my mum’s bladder control is phenomenal.  Better in fact, much better than mine.  Mine has a strange mind of its own.

I can walk 3 to 4 hours everywhere around this town and its surroundings with no problem. But as I near the street where we live, my bladder seems to get overexcited. “Steady on”, I tell it. I have noticed that in one’s 60s you begin to address organs and limbs and even other parts of your anatomy as if they are separate entities. I reckon it’s because they tend to play up in unexpected ways on the quality of life. This gives them a sort of character of their own. My knee for example will suddenly dislike steep or downwards slopes.  The pain generated feels as if the knee doesn’t like such slopes and this capricious nature gives it a particular identity of its own.  

My bladder also has a sense of humour. I used to think of it as being darn right malicious but I’ve grown to realise it just has an incredible sense of humour. This means at certain critical points when it is not possible or inappropriate to use a bathroom, at a wedding or funeral service or when being examined in a doctor’s surgery etc my bladder will signal a sudden need.  I call my bladder Darnell because in part I used to say to myself at such times “Darn it!”  The darn grew into a Darnell because something that could be both overexcited and yet so playfully humorous deserved a name.   

This process of addressing body parts continues apace with age until even inanimate objects seem to acquire a personality of their own. A dear aunt of mine comes down into her own kitchen every morning and asks “Where are you, kettle?” She has my sympathy I already have a strange ability to make inanimate objects disappear, such as keys phones etc but as yet I refuse to address them.  Give it another decade and I can imagine quite nasty conversations with these perverse objects which hide so effectively. 

Where was I? Oh yes, my bladder. When I am a good 10 minutes from my destination my bladder begins to sense relief is coming soon and gets over-excited. I usually sit on a small wall and pretend to tie my shoelaces telling my bladder firmly we are not home yet only close! On bad days I feel all my neighbours are noticing my predicament and on good days I don’t care. Given my mum’s camel-like ability to store water for long periods I was perplexed when she produced free coupons for discrete bladder leak pants and pads for me to get while doing the weekly shop. When I asked why she wanted them she shrugged and pointed out that they were free as if we would be fools not to use these freebies popped through our letterbox. The fact they were unneeded did not matter. Reluctantly I found myself in Tesco’s looking at shelf after shelf of bladder protection products trying to identify the brand that corresponded to the coupon in my hand. It was all too confusing so I asked a staff member who was stacking shelves nearby. She suggested ones that seemed to correspond to my coupon and I threw them into my shopping basket with all the other purchases. 

It was only when I reach the checkout and handed through all the groceries that I came upon the bladder protection stuff and remembered my voucher and held it up. The cashier said she wasn’t sure the voucher corresponded to that particular pack. She told me to wait a minute and shouted over to a colleague a few rows away, "Deidre, are these the bladder protection pads that match the coupons?” Deidre couldn’t make out the details of the coupon from that distance and told her many customers to wait while she came over to inspect first the coupon and then the pads. At least two queues of shoppers were now paying close attention to our goings-on. Deirdre frowned confused, “I’m not sure, I made a mistake earlier on and handed out the wrong pads to a customer. Let me call Dave the manager!” 

This whole affair was rapidly turning into a circus. Red-haired Dave arrived but seemed reluctant to tackle this incontinence problem. He explained to the cashiers, “Actually I’m due my break now, let me get Richard”. His voice boomed out “Richard, Richard!” towards a dark-haired man with greasy hair at the back of the store near the freezers. “Richard, can you come and sort out incontinence pads for this lady?” This particular lady wanted to hide under her trolley at this stage but there was no escape. I suggested to the cashier closest to me, “Never mind, leave it.” But she explained she’d already scanned in the pads.  Richard arrived looking worried and announced to both tellers in a concerned voice “I don’t know much about incontinence stuff”. I said “Look, it’s okay I don’t want it anymore.” The teller explained sulkily to the manager, “I’ve already entered the coupon and pads in the system we just need to find the right bladder protection thing it refers to". Fearing Richard would head off looking for more brands and wanting this whole affair over I repeated more firmly, “I don’t want it anymore, I just want to pay for the groceries.” Richard looked relieved and said “Sure, but we just need to remove the voucher and pads from the receipt.” He told a teller to give me the receipt and then said “You just need to go to customer services and they will remove the item and settle the balance.” He smiled relieved the whole thing was no longer a problem needing to be solved.  He accompanied me part of the way to the customer service desk near the door and then stopped and said in a loud voice, “Daphne, could you help this lady!”  

To be honest I wanted to hug this greasy Richard. By this stage, I felt sure he would mention bladder control to this part of the supermarket too.  After all, at this end, there was a whole other audience that didn’t know I was trying to get a product for a leaky bladder. Daphne was suitably helpful and quickly removed the item from my receipt and prepared to give me the money in exchange.  She whispered across the counter to me that many women had found it impossible to find the right product matching the coupon sent out.  That made me feel much better and I began to relax, I smiled and explained my mother was particularly keen on using all coupons that provided free goods.  Daphne, responded, “I know, if there is a coupon available my mum is exactly the same and gets it even if it is something she never eats!”  We both laughed and to be honest I was feeling much better as I awaited the change she was taking out of the till.  

But Darnell would have the last laugh, at that precise moment she struck and I had to take my change and rush into the nearby toilet beside the customer service.  When I emerged from the facility Daphne said nothing but there was a rueful expression on her face that had a small smirk to it.  I could be wrong, I know I am super sensitive, my mother points this out on a daily basis, but I have taken to avoiding Tesco’s for a while.   Even free coupons can cause humiliation to this soul!