Nurture your Nature

Yoohoo... Gardyloo! [18+]

You are desperate to use the bathroom. But, you share this with several others. It's down the hall (waaaay down the hall), and it's cold despite the heat being set to the 'normal' temperature. Being an older person, your legs and ability to hold it ain't what it used to be. How do you handle this dire situation?

I may have inspired or even suggested today's 30dbc prompt (above). I don't remember but I responded:

I live in an 'old' hotel built in 1908. Fortunately the common bathrooms (toilet in one, shower in the other) is right next door. The halls can be cold, or on the third (2nd to Brits) hot as hades in July. If it's occupied it's 21 steps down to the one on the second floor. Those steps seem to multiple as the years pass me by.

I hope someone can come up with a humorous response to what can be a 'tragedy' if I don't get 'there' in time. If you are young imagine having to hobble on a broken leg! Of course someone might come up with the old Scot solution: open the window and yell "gardyloo!"

"Gardyloo!" 

Gardyloo!

Beware what flies
out yonder window
to the gutters below.
Beware it does not
shower you
with its fragrance
malodorous and rare.

Not,
the cologne of lilac, vanilla, pine
that greets you on your paths
through glen and garden!
Nor baby powder,
fresh and fine.

Don’t look up!
It stings the eye.

So beware
when next you hear the cry:

Gardyloo!

Be quick
and step aside.

© Kåre Enga

gardyloo: an old cry in throwing water, slops, etc.,
from the windows in Edinburgh.

In Real Life during covid I would pee in a cup. This building has AirBnB units so I never felt safe and even avoided taking a shower. In summer when it's 100 outside and maybe more inside (my two windows face south) I might be wearing very little or nothing and have to put something on before I use the toilet. Heaven help me if I suddenly don't feel well.

My legs and lungs are having problems with the stairs; but today I took a stiff walk 'to the licker store to git me some vittels'. It's called Orange Street Food Farm but the back wall is full of beer and wine. I got cashews and cherries and pork chops. I don't drink.

I went looking for my scarf earlier and couldn't find it so I asked in two places. Nope. On the way back I was pelted with snow but lo and behold my green knit scarf was hanging from a white picket fence in the 300 block of 5th street. It must've been hanging there for a week. This is the second time I've lost it only for it to find me. I do like it.

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