AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING LIKE MY MOTHER -

Things could always be worse.

Today I sat in on a deposition of a woman who was injured on the job. Mary, her real name, is from Guatemala. Her last name has 24 letters in it and three dashes. Mary easily weighs 300 pounds and claims to have fallen down the outside stairs at work due to a wind gust. That in itself raised a brow or two, but that's not the point.

Mary was born with a defective right hand. She cannot turn her wrist. She obviously has been left handed all of her life. In her fall, she severely injured her left shoulder and has no range of motion in it. Due to not being able to turn her right wrist and with no mobility in her left shoulder, when she goes to the bathroom, Mary cannot "clean herself down there".

Mary has to hold her #2's until her adult daughters are around to help her "clean herself down there". Mary can handle #1's because because she uses pads in her panties (seems wrong to refer to a 300 pound woman's drawers as panties, doesn't it?). The bad thing is that Mary suffers from constant irritation "down there" due to the conctant wetness in the pads.

There are two points to this story:

#1) Whenever you're feeling down, think of Mary. Things could always be worse. (#1 Kayism - Kay is my mother).
#2) Whenever you reach for the toilet paper, count your blessings (#2 Kayism). Grab it with a vengeance.