Exotic food

I've mentioned John before. He's the 85-odd man who has a problem with Christians and Bingo and who thinks I must be old.

Most of the residents, just like you and I, have a list of foods they won't touch. Me, I'm pretty ordinary. I'll eat pretty much anything except oysters, calamari and brains. (I'm sure there are weirder things you could stick in front of me that I would reject, but you get the idea.)

Most residents only have things like Brussels Sprouts on that "will not eat" list, but John appears to have a strange fear of the exotic. I'm not talking escargot here, I'm talking anything he can't immediately identify. This makes things quite interesting when it comes to all our creative casseroles as in the Spanish Chicken episode.

All the staff know that you never, ever put tartare sauce on his dish if we're having fish. It's like unleashing a floodgate of anger. Apparently John never had it as a youngun, because if he's not familiar with the food "you can take it away and swim in it". Similarly rejected items are anything containing curry that isn't a typical pussy-English excuse for curry, and any dessert not served the way it has been for 50 years. For instance, sago pudding MUST have cream (never custard or fruit). Custard is ok with fruit, however. But you may not have ice cream with fruit. There are rules. I think the rules only exist in John's head, but far be it from me to dare break them.

We are expected to take the following days' orders at lunchtime. Occasionally a resident has gone out for the day and their order is missed. We're supposed to chase them up later on to get their order, but that's a pain in the ass. So sometimes, if we know them reasonably well, we'll know which foods they like and we can just do the order for them. Most of them are ok with that.

I was working with Alison one morning when I realised John didn't have an order for lunch, and I wondered aloud what he would like, asking what was for lunch. The options that day were Veal Cordon Bleu or Navarin of Lamb (aka Lamb Casserole). She said, "Don't bother asking. He'll have the Lamb Casserole." He usually turns casserole down, but I wrote what she said. After all, I didn't want to go and ask.

When he showed up for lunch, I felt bad, so I offered him the choice. He looked at me in disgust. "What the hell's that?" he asked, referring to the Veal Cordon Bleu. Before I had a chance to explain, he said, "Don't put that rubbish near me. I want the casserole."

I met Alison in the kitchen and she began to laugh. She said, "He won't eat anything that doesn't sound like food." That was something I had to stand there and try to understand for a minute or so. What does food sound like? Thank goodness I hadn't offered Navarin of Lamb. (I still don't know what a Navarin was, and maybe I'll never know.)

This guy is so big on ordinary foods like Frankfurts with Mashed Potatoes that I knew there had to be a way to fool him. Call me sick, call me twisted, but the next time that Veal Cordon Bleu was on the menu, I offered him Navarin of Lamb or the Ham and Cheese Veal.

He chose the veal. He said it sounded nice. And he ate it, too.

John's afternoon coffee

I've mentioned John before, in the bingo incident. John, I am informed by my aunt, was one of the Rats of Tobruk. I'm a little fuzzy on my history, but apparently these people were incredibly brave war veterans who suffered and saw horrors that would test the staunchest soldier. Not many of them are still alive today, but many of them had post-traumatic stress disorder and it is completely understandable that they might have some, er, eccentricities. John is of advanced age, but considering how often he can behave "normally", I can only conclude that it's the things he has seen that make him a little unusual.

This morning when I took his breakfast, he pointed at a dark brown splash-mark on his living-room carpet, remarked that he'd been woken at 2am to find this, and wanted to know what it was and would I smell it? I dutifully did and told him it was vomit. He promptly blamed it on a friend that was over for coffee the day before, who must have vomited on the floor and not said anything. People do that, you know. They vomit on a friends' living room floor at 4pm, don't say a word, and somehow that vomit will make enough noise to wake you at 2am.

Bingo is for old people

The latest adventures of Shady Oaks Lifestyle Village haven't quite been as enjoyable as the Woofer incident. Lately I've had to manage the other two dining rooms - including the Royale, whose residents are, predictably, the more exclusive set. They do, honestly, seem to believe they're in an exclusive restaurant, and many of them have the appropriate disdain for small mistakes in their meal (no, *SHE* asked for fewer carrots, *I* asked for less beans!) or two-minute delays in receiving their coffee. Raucous conversation is certainly never allowed, much less loud laughter.

Yesterday began like all the others. I was running a few minutes late though, and as most of the Royale residents were beginning dessert, one lady rose and began removing a tablecloth, carefully placing the salt shakers on the sideboard and folding the tablecloth neatly. At first I thought she was trying to be "helpful" until another resident began placing huge numbered bingo cards around the table.

One of those still-eating was John. A bit of background info on John. John is essentially a pleasant man. He remarks on the nice weather each morning that I deliver his breakfast tray. I'm told that he can be somewhat abrupt and rude at times. The staff and other residents tend to just change the subject and ignore the outbursts. Many of them here are old and losing a few marbles. Some are just a bit wacky while still young. He's the former. I estimate him to be about 85.

As it was being set up, the conversation at the other tables shifted to how wonderful bingo is, and how one of them had played it at the church hall. Apparently several of them could identify, because it necessitated a discourse on the fact that there was a lot of bingo going on at a lot of halls, that it was often organised by the churches, and that it was wonderful.

From out of nowhere, John stood up and yelled at the top of his voice, "I HATE CHRISTIANS! I CAN'T STAND BLOODY CHRISTIANS! I HATE THEM!"

The place fell so silent you could have heard a pin drop. (Later, I realised they were silent not because of the delicate subject matter, but because someone had dared raise their voice.)

A few moments later the bingo-preparations resumed and the chatter cautiously began again, when John made another huge announcement. "I HATE BINGO! BINGO IS FOR OLD PEOPLE!"

Silently, from 6 feet away from him, Penelope had been intently concentrating on her dessert bowl. She slowly raised her head and turned to face him, staring, yet said nothing.

At this point I was faced with a major dilemma. A resident was holding out a stack of plates for me to take and I was facing the wrong direction to escape and hide my mirth. I did my best not to laugh, but as I looked over at Penelope, I lost it. I can only imagine she was thinking what I was thinking, namely, just how young did John think he was?

Penelope has all her marbles and all her hearing, and is 101.

(It would have been a good ending right there, but the rest is mildly amusing when I think back.)

John didn't seem to like the fact that I was laughing in the still of the room, and he just stared at me. So I loudly announced, "I play Bingo!!!!!!!!!" (It's the truth. It's also a weekly catch-up with my mother, since our local club has child-minding.)

Every head in the room swivelled to look at me. Did they secretly agree with John? And was this shock I was seeing? He asked me, "Well, are you old?"

I should mention here that I remember flared trousers and the Bee Gees, yet I'm so young-looking that I still get asked for identification when buying beer. I didn't get a chance to figure out whether he was serious (and off his tree that day) or just making a joke, but I simply answered that on bingo days I must be, and the rest of the room managed to laugh.