They're not all in, y'know, good taste, but you all have come to expect that from me, right?
So, on TWoP, in a forum devoted to horrifying commercials, I saw some discussion of a product I myself had been blissfully unaware of up until that point. I don't remember what it's called (and you know I'm too lazy to go back and look it up) but it was basically a stick to attach your toilet paper to. It was being marketed as a more sanitary way to wipe, which pretty much made a whole lot of people ask WTF? Until someone else pointed out that actually this was a *brilliant* marketing strategy because what this product was really for was people who are too fat to reach their own butts to clean themselves properly on the toilet. Such people, the target audience, might be too embarrassed to purchase this contraption, but when they see the perky thin blond 30-something typical-commercial-model woman earnestly talking about how this is so much more sanitary, they can convince themselves that sure! anyone might buy this, even her! It's cleaner!
(As a digression, I was into my forties before I ever even *knew* that there were people too fat to wipe. I mean, yes, I work in health care, but it's pediatrics. Certain things I don't have to think about. But the reason I found out was that a friend confided to a bunch of us that her husband's ex-wife had weighed 500 pounds, and she indeed was too obese to wipe. I gotta say, to my shame, this piece of [too much] information forever after colored how I looked at my friend's husband.)
Anyway, in this TWoP thread, someone admitted that they wondered about blind people: how do they know they're done wiping? I gotta say, that was another thing that had escaped my consciousness until then, but it's a valid question.
Okay, now just keep that in the back of your mind whilst we segue. My dad, as you know, we (sorta) fondly refer to as Helen Keller. He's got macular degeneration and he's getting blinder by the day. And as some of you may remember me saying, doing the dishes has always been my dad's "job." At least after he retired, since my mom always cooked, and usually cooked elaborate meals, he always cleaned up. Dishes, cleaning the kitchen, the whole nine yards. And after my mom died and I had to take over cooking for him lest he waste away on a diet consisting solely of Hot Pockets, hot dogs, and fried eggs, he continued to do the dishes.
Well, for the last couple years at least, as his eyes have gotten worse, so has his ability to not leaved caked-on food on every pot, every bowl, every kitchen surface. He just can't see what he's missed anymore. It got to the point where I just assumed if I took something out of a cupboard to cook with, I'd have to re-wash it before using. But he refused to relinquish his "job" through a combination of really actually wanting to help and not wanting to admit there was yet another thing he couldn't do for himself anymore.
I don't know if I mentioned it, but this weekend in the cabinet washing and pull replacing, I (mostly) finished up another little project I'd started the weekend before: cleaning out and reorganizing the cabinets. After being hit upside the head with the realization that I had *25* cabinets and drawers in there, I had to say to myself, Andrea, there is no reason for you to have to have all this crap all over your counters--a person with 25 kitchen cabinets and drawers has plenty of storage space. So I threw out and I reorganized and I freed up a crapload of counter space. (If anyone needs/wants any baking ware, by the way, lemme know: I still have way too many ramekins and custard cups and cake pans and stuff like that that were my mom's that I will never use.) It is so nice. Not only does it look better and less cluttered, there's less juggling when I'm cooking. There's plenty of space on both sides of the sink and both sides of the stove now.
But now that I have emptyish counters and cleanish cabinets, I want to keep them that way, so I've been making sure to get to the dishes and kitchen cleaning up before my dad gets in there--which also gives me the side benefit of not having dried up food on every already "washed" pot, etc. My dad has given in gracefully, without much argument, which is actually kind of sad.
Which leads me to my related question. Just as "how do blind people know they're done wiping?", how do blind people know they're done cleaning? How do they know they haven't missed a spot? How do they know they've gotten all the crumbs? How do they vacuum? How do they pre-treat their laundry? Does being blind mean you just necessarily have to have a very casual attitude towards spots on your shirt and such? What if you're some super clean-freak who goes blind later in life? Do you then go insane from the stress of not knowing? It's kinda fascinating.
xoxo
8 comments:
I once worked with a disabilities advocate who was himself blind. He said first, that abilities vary. You have one set of skills if you're blind from birth and another if you have lost vision.
But second, it's a matter of tactile sense. My friend's example was shaving, which he did, with a razor, as well as I. As he was losing his sight, part of his training was to grow more aware of how his face felt when it was completely shaved.
This concept is of course a bit gross when applied to anal cleansing, and less so when applied to dishes, but there it is: tactile sense.
As I recall, a place for everything is important to the process. My friend would occasionally miss his coffee cup with the sugar in restaurants, because the cup wasn't in the expected place and he was engrossed in conversation. We'd warn him if we noticed in time: he'd straighten things out, then go on as if nothing odd had happened.
How about getting a dishwasher and have your Dad deal with that instead? You can tell him it's better for the environment... which it is. Much less water and energy use (and with the good detergent much cleaner dishes).
You're missing the point.
Besides, I do so have a dishwasher. Okay, it's sorta that harvest gold color, which means it's been there since they built this house, and the bottom part kinda fell off of it, and it isn't really functional at the moment. It does however, exist.
But anyway, considering the fact that my dad is no longer capable of using the washer/dryer, the microwave, or the oven (though he can still boil water on the stove), I see *no* reason to assume he could use the dishwasher were it working.
No, I got the point, I was just trying to make a suggestion on how to get cleaner dishes (and to have your dad still feel useful w/o cutting him off). I realized the bigger question was how do people do these things when they can't see? Or reach? Or whatever.
But if he can't use the washer/drying anymore, I guess the dishwasher is right out. :-( (A much better working replacement's probably, like, $400. Just sayin').
Yeah, yeah, you're always so quick to suggest how I can spend my money, Mr I've-Needed-a-New-Couch-for-Three-Years-But-Can't-Bring-Myself-to-Purchase-One. :-)
Hey, it's one of the reasons I like my job. Spending other people's money is far more satisfying and far less traumatic than spending any of my own.
Well, back when my employer and other people still had money. How times change.
But I did buy my own new dishwasher back in 2001. So I have indeed put my money were my dishpan fingers is.
I can't tell you what blind people in general do - I'm not acquainted on those kind of terms, you know, but I can give some answers as one blind person, and with macular degeneration at that. Excuse me if my answers are as forthright as your questions, as these are fairly - um - delicate matters, described in gross terms, ironically.
So, how do sighted people know when they've wiped properly? Do they have mirrors stuck up their back ends, with - I presume - second mirrors to enable them to see what's in the first one?! If not, they probably use their sense of touch and a bit of common sense, same as I do. Far from putting paper on some object like a stick to make it more remote, you want to get in there and get to know what it's really like.....
I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, you can wipe until you stop sliding about...... and if you feel like you've got clinkers in there, you get your fingers around the paper and take them off!! Well, I said there wasn't too fine a point. And just in case all that hasn't worked, why not use this old-fashioned stuff called soap and water to finish the job? You know whether it's worked by how good it feels, or not, surely.
Washing the dishes is the same sort of thing as washing yourself. Get your fingers in there and see what's happening. If there's food clinging to plates and cutlery, you can feel it like it's embossed with Braille. People comment on how good my washing up is - and I often moan about how bad other people's is. No wonder I have to joke that sighted people are "light-dependant" - you don't need your eyes to check the dishes, as it seems they're none too reliable anyway, especially if you don't darn-well use them properly.
Kitchen surfaces, I'll grant you, are a bit more of a challenge, but the same principles apply. If it's sticky, covered in Braille, wet, or smelly, it ain't clean. I go over surfaces a bit at a time, keeping in my head a map of where I've cleaned and where I haven't. As I go, I remove any jars, plates, plants or other clutter, only to return it to the same incongruous places when I've finished.
It's good not to accumulate clutter, but balanced against that you have to have a way of knowing where everything is, and it isn't always ideal to have stuff hidden away in cupboards in piles that only make sense to sighted people. So it's a matter of striking a balance that works for you.
he bottoms of these objects can accumulate a fearsome miasma of coffee granules, sugar, bread-crumbs, the effluent from rotting vegetables and God knows what. They can have a clean while I'm at it. I'm of a fiarly ecological fram of mind, so only use simple stuff such as a cloth and some eco washing up liquid. But occasionally I'll blitz it all with bleach or I'll raid the aromatherapy oils and spray on some watered-down citronella or lemongrass oil. Most refreshing, and a kind of germicidal insurance policy, better than those anti-bacterial cloths you can buy.
If anyone's too squeamish to use their fingers, they can always put some rubber gloves on and still feel most things.
And as I walk around barefoot a lot of the time, I soon notice if the floor is getting crunchy and needs vacuuming. Again, I keep a mental map of where I've been with the hoover and where I haven't.
Clothes, doo, present their challenges, of course. I'm not over-fussy, but no, I don't go around with egg-stains down my shirt or holes in it. I ask people to tell me about anything I've missed, and I beg them not to get embarrassed about telling me. I know if I've spilt coffee down myself, I can dab some of it off with a bit of kitchen towel and then put it in soak straight away with a bit of salt. Chances are the washing machine will do the rest next day. It's probably best if I don't have too many white shirts!
I'm not saying I get it perfect - life is probably too short for that. But if I get any feedback, it is pretty good.
Thank you so much for the first-hand reporting. *Of course* it makes perfect sense that you'd just ask your sighted friends and family not to be shy about letting you know if you're walking around with a huge ketchup stain on your shirt that didn't come out in the wash or something.
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