Monday, October 19, 2009

Need diapers? It Depends...

The young, female worker stocking shelves at Target could tell I had a question as I approached her along a wide aisle. She could also see she would be dealing with someone of mature years, perhaps the kindest euphemism for geezer.

I was searching for diapers for my grandchildren. Make note of that: grandchildren. Some people in the last stages of the “Seven Ages of Man” find themselves in need of such products themselves when they are “sans everything,” as Shakespeare put it.

Putting my question oddly by pure happenstance, instead of asking, “where’s the diapers?” I said, “Am I anywhere near diapers?”

She looked me over for a moment, and then sent me to another part of the store where baby items are located. As I walked away, I was thinking of her missed opportunity. Surely the answer to an older man asking, “Am I anywhere near diapers?” should have been, “That Depends.”

The "should have said" journal of Jim Heffernan

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Jim
Diapers once had cute names like Pampers and Huggies. Maybe they still do. My grandson comes equipped with diapers that go by the name “Cruisers”. Maybe I’m locked into bad 1950 era movies but the name Cruisers does not conger up the image of a cute, smiley infant. I get a mental picture of a 2 year old wearing a diaper and black leather jacket, with a sneer on his lips and a greased duck tail haircut leaning against a pink and black ‘57 Desoto. Definitely, I’m sure, not the desired image the manufacturer was hoping for.
Erick H.

Jim Heffernan said...

Erick,
They do still use those cute names. (All but one of our 5 grandchildren are in diapers to some degree. Yikes!) And... besides the endearing names for diapers, they have cute pictures on them from Sesame Street etc. What goes in them is not so cute though :-) I like your image of Cruisers. Got a kick out of the description of the Fonz type guy in the black leather jacket in the diaper. Saturday Night Live material for sure. Always fun to hear from you.