Equal Opportunity

"I can tell that you guys are a bunch of Equal Opportunity Employers down there at the cab stand cause you got a bunch of handicapped people running the show and you laugh at them."
-The Grocery Shopper

If that sounds a bit befuddling to you, than you should try to imagine what it would be like to try and come up with an answer while driving through heavy fog at rush hour. (...and yes, small towns have rush hours, especially when they're only a half hour outside a major metropolitan area.)

I stammered like an idiot.

The live-in caregiver, who looked an awful lot like Sam Elliot in a Miller Lite hat, tried to bail me out by saying, "awww come on, he was just five minutes late, give the guy a break."

Thanks Sam...loved you in Roadhouse!

Trouble is, I wasn't late, but whatever, one never gets to far when arguing with the mentally handicapped. It's like trying to have an argument with a five year old, or a Creationist.

If you think that last statement to be offensive, I apologize, but I will also point out that you probably don't spend time with a lot of mentally handicapped people.

The entire ride to the grocery store was threatening to ruin my day, until we came upon the subject of women. He seemed to be of a better disposition when I assured him that I would do my best to find him a "sugar mama." (My words.)

Upon picking the pair up from the grocery store for the return ride home, the care-giver told me, as I helped him put the groceries in the trunk, that it was no wonder that the couldn't get a caregiver to stay with him for more than three months.

What a happy household.

The rest of the day was far less tragic except for one instance when I was dropping an elderly lady off at her group home. I was mentioning something about going to the grocery store after my shift to pick up a loaf of bread when she brought up that she was a mother of eight and had always made biscuits for her kids rather than buying bread. When she tried to make them earlier today she couldn't remember how. "Oh it's a shame to grow old and watch your mind begin to go. I just sat down and cried...but I'll be picking up a recipe tommarow from a friend."

She laughed at herself after confessing some of her personal life to a complete stranger, and went about her day as if it was an opportunity, rather than a gift.

Adversity, it seems, takes many forms, but if you think that her story is sad, you're looking at it in the wrong way. While most jobs in the American workforce are equal opportunity, growing old isn't, necesarily. We should all be so lucky to forget stuff when we're old.