An Unusual Encounter

I went in to a resident’s room today to help work on a walker. As I was leaving the room, I noticed a calendar on a bulletin board by the door with what at first glance looked like the old fashioned “pin-up” girl picture above the calendar part. I quickly turned away, hopefully not obviously, and said something mundane about glad I could help, or whatever.
Immediately, the man asked me back inside and took the calendar off the wall. It was indeed a pin-up-type calendar (Playboy brand) and the elderly man, who lives there with his wife in that room, told me that was their granddaughter. Evidently, this young woman was playmate of whatever month on the calendar (I didn’t look much at the calendar part of the calendar. And yes, the pertinent body parts were covered).
I was rather at a loss for words, but managed to have a conversation about—yes, even this topic, and then left the room. The young woman is now living in this area, tending bar at some establishment run by her boyfriend and owned by the same person who has several well-known franchise restaurants in town. The man even showed me an article clipped from a newspaper about the bar when it opened.
I’m not sure whether to be aghast (my sister’s favorite word) or impressed. Aghast because of the openness of the grandparents in what the granddaughter was and had been doing with her life, or impressed that the elderly grandparents were obviously inclusive, open, and loving of even this granddaughter, who many in my circle of relatives and friends would say was a definite black sheep. Whether these grandparents think that or not, I do not know and don’t intend to ask.
I visited with the nurse a little about it, telling her of my encounter and we both remarked that we didn’t quite know what to do with that conversation…she had been shown the same calendar a few days prior.
There’s nothing “against the rules” for such a display in a long term care home room. The room is the resident’s domain, and they have the right to have, within reason, whatever they want in there…even porn. We have one person who has porn videos in the room, and we have only asked that they be turned off when a staff member comes in to the room.
This interaction made for an interesting sidelight this afternoon, and I obviously am still thinking some about it…hence the writing. I’m not trying to make a point, I don’t think, other than to say that life throws curves at us at times. We are forced out of our comfort areas probably more often than we’d like to admit, and how we react says a lot about who we are and what we think.
Self-righteous indignation probably wouldn’t have been the appropriate reaction. I have skeletons enough in my own closet that would have precluded me from being Pharisaical. And in a way, I’m glad for the experience. It takes all kinds in this world, and whether I agree with them or not, I live with them on this planet and interact with some of them. I really need some idea what these people are like, instead of lecturing them at a distance from the safety of my hole in the wall of self-righteousness.