Tale of a numb bum
For the sake of argument, if I were to get you to sit there for a long time you'd end up with a numb bum.
Of course, you'd need a fair share of reading matter or a particularly long movie or speech to warrant being sedentary for so long. But your weight pushing down on the gluteus maximus would tend to impinge on the circulation of blood to and from the region in question.
Given time, the tissue there would die and begin to ulcerate. Instead of a pair of unmarked serviceable cheeks, a deep necrotic core would form and you'd be in trouble. To add to the effect, maybe you could urinate on it.
What we have here is your standard, everyday bed sore — or for those in the know, a decubitous ulcer. These little pouches of puss often form on the ankles, knees, elbows, hips, back or sacrum of patients who are bedridden and immobile.
If you seek to laugh in the face of peril as you grow old and live dangerously, the humble numb bum, hip or elbow is sure to impinge on your lifestyle.
No one wants to take to or wet their own bed if they can help it. But it can happen to the best of us. We don't all go — as my dear father did — quickly (on the 510 bus en route to the pokies). Some of us are sure to go slowly into the night.
This is what your local aged care facility is all about. If, for the sake of argument, you were a resident in such an abode, your local aged care facilitators would function to turn, toilet and feed you.
It's pretty basic stuff. Day in day out, it's change the sheets, hand-feed the "gerries" (as they're affectionately called), wash and toilet them, and keep turning them, as you would a slow-basting chicken.
The problem is that such basic nursing care doesn't come cheap, especially if someone wants to profit from grandma's misfortune. All this hoo-ha about nursing homes we've been treated to recently is basically about that: how can the market get its pound of flesh from grandma's bony arse?
The ever-so exciting process of restructuring and privatisation we all know and love — it's the only game in town, right? Sooner or later it comes home to roost on some unlucky bugger's numb bum.
If you want to look upon the face of capitalism in the 21st century, there it is: it has a deep necrotic core and oozes puss.
Dave Riley