Leaky Pipes

A good portion of my life these days seems to involve leaky pipes.   My mother's pipes, my pipes, the dogs' pipes, Walt's pipes

. 

If you're a woman, the nice thing about getting older is ... yay! ... no more of that annoying monthly menstrual period.  No more tampons or thick pads that feel like walking around with a small paperback book between your legs.  The euphoria of having your last menstrual period seems to last about an hour and a half and then the leaking begins.  It's sneaky.  You sneeze and...oops.  A little spritz.  You start scoping out the bathroom as soon as you arrive at a new place. 

 

I worked for a doctor whose practice involved a lot of surgeries to fix leaky pipes (I don't think a wrench was involved), but I always thought that was more the serious leakage problem.  I don't know that I would want to go under the knife (or wrench) for a minor, irritating leak. 

Women began bringing leakage out of the closet... admitting that yeah, they have a slight problem.  Then you begin to realize that there are as many commercials out there for incontinence as there are for "E.D."

I'm not sure how one "pees your pants like a lady," but there are an awful lot of products out there that want to help.  Pee pads are a fairly new item, I think.  Big, fat, absorbent menstrual pads have been around forever and one day there started to be a discreet little package next to them on the supermarket shelves which was supposed to absorb "leaks."

Whoopi Goldberg added humor to the situation when she became the spokesperson for Poise pads.

I was at Costco the other day and discovered you could buy a humongous box of pee pads.  I was there for doggie pee pads (you can buy a humongous box of those too...and I do!). 

I discovered recently that pee pads are no longer unique to women.   Now they are making them for men, too and while men are probably not admitting to a leakage problem as openly as women are ('cause we can't resist talking about stuff like this and it makes men cringe to admit to having a problem), it's nice to see that they, too, now have a product that they are embarrassed to have their friends see them buying.

When I took my mother shopping the other day, I asked if she needed leakage pads and she sheepishly admitted that "well, maybe a small package..."  We found the smallest package they had on the shelf and she kept asking if they had a smaller package.  She was embarrassed to buy such a big package (30 pads) and said it would probably last her till the end of her life.  She then said that she only used them when she felt she needed them, which kinda tells me that by the time she feels she needs them, it's pretty much too late.

But we humans are embarrassed when we have conditions which show that we aren't perfect...or that we (and our body parts) are getting older.

Of course all of this is purely hypothetical, you understand.   It's certainly not my problem.

(Now about that bridge I have for sale....)