Pick A Color!

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We ALF residents were all in our places waiting for dinner when the announcement was made explaining that several areas of our abode would be painted including the laundry rooms (don’t try to do your wash and if the staff does it for you, it won’t be done) the stairwell (take the elevator and don’t slide down the banister) and the hallway walls (close your doors or plug your noses).

We all nodded in understanding but several people had questions about using the washing machines and dryers but they were quickly mollified by the Administrator who had announced the WET PAINT warning and suggested the “dos-and-don’ts.

Following the announcement, the Administrator happened to pass next to the table at which I and a fellow resident happened to be engaged in eating our dinner. My table mate a true wag looked up at the Administrator and foolishly asked, “Do we (meaning the residents but only the cognitive ones) get to pick the colors?” “Foolishly” because since when do we residents have a say an opinion or input even a perspective (it’s all only reaction for us) in things that affect our living our lives in Long Term Care as practiced in the LTC residence in which we residents reside?

The answer is NEVER when which is not the same as WHENEVER in the jargon of today’s youth including our young-adult caregivers.

But there’s a silver lining to this playbook. Most residents like the color but there’s controversy over what color it should be called as some say sage some say teal but the official word by those who made the official choice is oyster bay.

Oyster Bay is a hamlet in the eponymous town on the eastern shore of Long Island New York also the summer home of Teddy Roosevelt and oodles of celebs including a not-so-positive resident who brought havoc to the country in the early 1900s by being an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever and causing deaths and mayhem including a residence in Oyster Bay where she was a cook.

As  a constant visitor to Long Island I’ve never seen the color of the water in which Oyster Bay is embedded but I doubt it matches the color of our paint. But what difference does that make?

Like it or leave!

[Photo by iStock AlesVelucek]