Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you have not committed.
– Anthony Powell
A hospital room is very awkward. Ditto for rest homes and other healthcare facilities that cater to the elderly. You know you should visit your friend or relative, but you just don’t know what to say. You don’t want to keep staring at them during those painful silences, so you scan the walls and oxygen tanks for inspiration. Whomever proclaimed that “the art of conversation is lost”, must have spent a lot of time in sickbay. The chitchat is idle talk about the family, the weather, and the unrelenting price of gasoline. And you ask about lunch and how dinner was last night, and what flavor the pudding was, and what time is physical therapy, and all the mundane questions you can possibly muster. Even though you probably already know that lunch was lousy, and dinner was limp pasta, there was no pudding, and physical therapy has been cancelled for that day. But what you really want to ask is aren’t you just sick and tired of all the poking and prodding, the wheelchairs, the embarrassing peek-a-boo gowns, the crap food, and hey, would you like me to smuggle in a cheeseburger from McDonald’s?