Everything but.....

Before I forget, and it drifts into the recesses of my cache memory, there is a topic I simply must address.

The contents of the basket of my mother's walker.

I'll be brief.

Because the contents are not.

As background, you should know that my mother is extremely territorial, and this quality has only been amplified by mom's age and her increasing dementia. You should also realize that in an A.L.F., frequent uninvited visitors to one's room is not an uncommon occurrence. And along that same line, the frequent disappearance of personal items is also not uncommon. I guess that's why everything, and I mean every thing, that belongs to a resident is permanently marked with their name. Of course, this doesn't prevent the unintentional pilfering, but it does help the staff to return said items to their proper owner.

Back to my mom's walker.

She has one of those walkers with a storage compartment under the seat. Within the compartment, there are also several pockets, some zippered, some not.

We're not talking about a large storage compartment here. It measures probably 24" in width by 12" in length by 8" in depth. Not huge, right? And yet.......

So here's what's in Mom's walker compartment:

two spare Depends, a hardcover book (currently, Carol Burnett's biography), a bag of Werther's Sugar-Free caramels, a box of plastic dental flossers, a square box of Kleenex, a brush, a few recently sent greetings cards from family members, a one pound box of See's candy (soft centers only), selected family photos, the current Vermont Country Store catalog, six pens, five pencils, Mom's reading glasses case, a can of Pepsi (and ONLY Pepsi), the key to her room (so she can lock herself in at night and keep the pilfering PeeBlossoms out), and five bottles of Afrin nasal spray hidden in the zippered side pockets (but don't tell anybody cuz she's not supposed to have those).

You know how they say you can tell everything about a person by looking at their checkbook?...