“Should I throw these out,” J asks me, indicating a pile of adult diapers beside the toilet. They have tabs to close them on the sides rather than being the step in brief kind I usually wear. I’m not able to stand and pull up briefs on my own anymore, so I bought these to try out, in a bid to hold on to my autonomy. It was a massive failure; I’m not able to get them under my ass properly, never mind operating the Velcro-like tabs with my failing hands.
“No, keep them,” I tell him. “Once I’m not able to get out of bed at all we’ll want them. You’ll need to undo the diaper, get me in the sling, lift me up, get the diaper off me, get me to the commode or whatever to do my biz and them lay out a fresh diaper. We’ll need the tabbed diapers.”
“I thought we said we didn’t want kids,” J tells me.
We laugh our asses off.
*************
The clip on my catheter bag has somehow come undone and there is a pool of pee next to the bed. I’m mortified, of course, and feel terribly about J having to clean it up.
“Someday I’ll be dead,” I tell him brightly, smiling like a television ad, “and you’ll never have to clean up my bodily fluids again!”
He eyes daggers at me while I laugh, like, “what the fuck is wrong with you.”
*************
Some days, the gallows are hilarious.