Captain Piss Pants

Her name is Marlene and she is completely gone from this world. Bedridden, incontinent and bipolar in addition to being the throes of senile dementia, she requires two people to turn her over and change her diapers several times each day. I worked two 7-3 shifts this week.

My job has its perks. I can take whatever days off I want-- just tell them I'm not going to be able to work that day and it's fine. I don't have to deal with malcontent yuppies or stay on my feet all day. After I've done everything I need to do for the client, the client's pets, and the house, I'm free to watch daytime TV, or, as I did today, nap on the couch. But adult care is disheartening, and by no means is anyone who does it spared verbal abuse from demanding clients. Yesterday and today Marlene's behavior was fairly mild. During changing yesterday, she yelled she was hot until we put the blankets back on her, and today she was so belligerent that we decided not to bathe her despite the fact she hadn't been bathed all week, out of fear of being clawed.

"We'll just have to see if she feels a little better tonight," sighed Jamie, the pony tailed blond pre-med I did shift overlap with today. A few days ago, Marlene called her a cunt because she wouldn't let her go to the bathroom in the closet. Jackie shrugged and seemed cheerful about it, though underneath it I could hear a bit of an edge.

The young woman I worked overlap with yesterday, Dolores, is not so inclined to let things slide off her back, however. A dark-haired, opinionated body-mod fan, she relayed her story with gritted teeth: "She called me a fucking piece of shit, screamed and threw shit at me. I just told her my mother always taught me never to say anything if you couldn't say something nice, so I wasn't saying anything. That shut her up right quick."

It's a shame, because Marlene would have a lot of stories to tell if she had any mental capacity to tell them. Dolores and I flipped through her high school yearbook. We couldn't figure out which one was Marlene, as there were several and we didn't know her last name before she was married.

"Look at these hairdos," I said, looking over a photo of a pep rally or football game, some event where the students filled the risers. There's one of those rambling little speeches about the memories of high school filling the opposite page. The girls all wear structured curls and lipstick, and the boys are all so clean cut. "1939. I wonder how many of these guys…"

"Died in the war?" Dolores finished my sentence.

"Yeah. And to think… they're not that different than us. Well, no one in my graduating class has died in the war, but plenty have gone." My thoughts immediately turn to my friend Joseph, who is stationed in Afghanistan. He's returning on leave next month and I'm anxious to see him, to see if war has changed him. I haven't seen him since graduation.

If it had been me in that picture, I might've died on the banks of Normandy. Or it could be me in that bed, getting changed every day, stinking of urine, talking to people who aren't there and calling nice women horrible names.

The speech waxes poetic on high school memories and the smell of turpentine. The last line, however, is memorable. "Our destiny is heaven."

For those men who died in the war, their destiny was heaven sooner that they thought.

For Marlene, maybe it hasn't come soon enough.