God Tissue

Have you ever noticed how some older women will keep a tissue in the cuff of their sleeve? For as long as I can remember my mother's nose seemed to be always running and she would avail herself of her ever ready tissue. And everytime I would take my mom in her wheel chair to Ross For Less or Marshalls, the sweater that we would look for always had to have at least one pocket on the side for her tissues. If not a pocket, her t-shirt or sweater needed to have a cuff to be able to house the nose wipe. To this day, three years after my mom has passed away, I still look for her favorite kind of sweaters in these discount stores and say to myself, "Oh, mom would have especially liked this one; it's got a double pocket for the tissues." My sister, too, has always been a nose blower and keeps tissues at hand for herself. When my sister travels out to see me from New York I always have to go to the supermarket ahead of time so that she has her supply of tissues in my house. I need to have one box in the kitchen, one in the downstairs bathroom and one in my bedroom.

I must have picked up the typical California allergies when I moved out here from the east coast because my nose never runs unless I have a cold; it's always stuffed. I don't even keep tissue boxes in the house. I'm a toilet paper person for the few times I need to blow my nose.

But today was one of my biggest panics. In my senior fitness class I realized that one of my best friends keeps a tissue in her cuff and that's probably why she always wears a thin sweater to class. So now that I saw this I figure it wont be long until I join the geriatic ritual of carrying a tissue on me all the time. I'll soon have to buy the two dozen boxes of tissues from Costco just to be ready for my senior sneezes and runny nose.