I had to help an 80 year old lady take a shower.  I didn’t have to wash her cause she was entirely mobile.  But they wanted me to sit there in case she needed help.  I really just had to open the soap bottles for her. And help her back into her clothes. This lady was a doll.

Before the shower, she had had a pair of hospital slippers on. Earlier, when she was trying to do the shower by herself, she had soaked the hospital slippers. So she asked for a second pair.

After the shower, we put a new pair of hospital slippers on her, but after about half an hour she hesitantly asked for a third pair of slippers saying that the slippers were kind of damp cause her feet hadn't been totally dry when we put them on.  But she looked scared when she asked. Like I was gonna slap her face and make a comment about her upbringing.

I was like, “Yeah, of course.”

And she said, “Everyone is going to be mad at me aren’t they.”

“What do you mean? No one cares how many slippers you take.”

“Well…I’m not sure. I think they are going to be upset.”

“Hey, it’s no big deal, we have lots of slippers.”

She still seemed really, really nervous. I tried to act nonchalant and brush it off as a silly worry. Cause it really is.

Then she asks, “You won’t tell anyone will you? That I’ve been using so many slippers?”

“I promise I won’t tell anyone. But really, no one cares.”

“Ok, but you won’t tell anyone?”

“No”

I thought this had settled it. I cleaned up the room a bit, putting the towels in the laundry, and making sure she had enough blankets, cause she was SO COLD.

As I was about to throw the slippers in the trash, she spoke up again.

“Could you put those in someone else’s trash. I don’t want people to know that they were mine. They’ll be mad.”

I imagined a bunch a accountants wearing protective goggles over their spectacles meticulously going through bio hazard bags that are labeled with room numbers. They pull out a pair of slippers with tongs and shake their heads in disgust. “That’s the 2nd pair,” they say before angrily adding another row to an excel file.

Well, if that’s what happens, then the person in the room two doors down is totally screwed.