The Elderly and Mentally Challanged: A recipe for disaster

I try and visit my grandmother or take her on little outings as much as possible. She is 82 years old, grew up in the deep south and considers Obama's election "The browning of America". She refers to the people at her retirement community as "the old folks", but doesn't label herself the same. She speaks with the thickest southern drawl' I have ever heard. About 7 years ago she moved back up north to be closer to us. She was getting older and not having anyone around her made it impossible for her to get anywhere. She is one of the funniest people I have ever met. She is so stuck her ways, I now see why my father is the way he is.

Whenever I am with her she always asks me about work. She just cant wrap her head around the fact that I work with disabled children. The other day I went over to her retirement community that she lives in. She was sitting with a few other old ladies holding court. My grandmother introduced me these woman for about the 43 time. As she introduces me she says "This is my granddaughter, she works with the cripples". Wait...wait...wait a minute here. Cripples? Since when do I work with people who suffered polio in 1926? Do people even use this word anymore? I am pretty sure we refer to such people has handicapped, am I right? So now I am cracking up to the point, I have to excuse myself to the bathroom to re-gain my composure. I return to the group of young ladies and attempt to explain what it is I exactly do. I go through the whole schpeal about my program is a life skills program, i.e. we teach these children skills that will help them to live an independent life and be a functioning part of society. So my grandmothers sidekick stares at me for a second, and then says "So you work with the retarded"? Wow, I just ranted for a good 21 minutes about autism and the disability and she got "retarded" out of that. At that point I gave up and made a mental note to tell my grandmother I got a new job as a librarian, you cant get more straightforward than that.

Now let me tell you folks, it isnt just my grandmother and her gaggle of homies that think this way. I recently went on a field trip with my students to a state park overlooking Manhattan and Statue of Liberty. As the short bus pulled up I noticed a group of elderly folk sitting on a park bench and cringed. Of course they were sitting right next to the bathrooms, our first stop on any trip. Of course the doors fly open and my students run off the bus like "One flew over the Cuckoos Nest" with me and my two assistants running after them screaming "Quiet Feet!". We finally get the kids back together in some sort of semblance, my assistants and I grab our "partners" and head towards the bathroom. The entire time this clusterfuck of action is going on I keep an eye on the elderly people. They looked scared, like someone just told them that prunes are not extinct. Oh did I mention I have only male students and my staff, including myself is all female, just a sidebar. So we go to the mens room, I knock, open the door and yell "Anyone in here!" (I always remember to do this now on account of I forgot to once and walked in on a man peeing and he was horrified and peed all over himself). Coast was clear so we loaded the troops in. Now the toileting is an interesting thing, since I am not a male I do not know exactly what the courtesy is when using a urinal so I urge my students to use the stalls. Of course there is only 1 so now we are faced with the problem of how we make our students wait to use the bathroom when half of them already have their pants around there ankles shuffeling around touching every fucking thing in the bathroom. "Quiet hands, do not touch a thing or else your going to get diphtheria!" Like they even know what diphtheria is, hell I dont even know what it is but my mother use to tell me and my sister this so I assume its something bad. Or made up to scare us from touching anything in a public place. So we finish our bathroom stuff, which takes about 30 minutes. As we walk out I try not to make eye contact with ANY of the old people sitting directly across from the men's bathroom. I could only imagine what they were thought about some of the things they heard coming from the bathroom. So I try and pick up our pace to our destination, the playground. However this was not to be the case, I hear from the left of me "Miss, Miss! Can I ask you a question". My parents always taught me to respect my elders so instead of ignoring them I answer: "Me, are you talking to me?" Hoping they were not. The old man wearing a hat that said "WWII veteran" signals for me to come over. So I give my assistants the nod to let the maniacs head over to the playground and I walk slower than shit over to them. "Yes, can I help you". The old man looks at me and goes "Are those kids retarded?" . Here we go again. "Well, we don't use that word, they have Autism. Mentally disabled if you will." Baffled, he looks at me and his cronies and then and says "Its a goddamn shame those kids, back in my day you never saw those type of things. And they didnt have fancy names for it either, this artistic you speak of, did you make that word up?" As much as I wanted continue this conversation I politely excused myself from the conversation and said I had to get back to my students.I can only imagine what they were thinking watching my students running around on that playground. My students are not little kids. The are full grown boys trying to fit down a slide meant for a 40lb 7 year old. As we were leaving I noticed I was getting the stank eye from them so I made my students go over, shake their hands and say goodbye. I think may have shit their depends.

So in essence, the mentally challenged and elderly just do not mix. Like oil and vinegar, Capulets and Montagues, or Republicans and Liberals. Nothing good comes out of these coagulating together. Only problem is, there is not way separate the two...so my life's work continues.