Why Do Senior Citizens Wear Too Much Cologne?

Did you ever experience being near a Senior Citizen when they are all dressed up to attend some function? It could be going to Church on Sunday, attending a banquet, heading to a visitation/wake or a funeral. Any of those functions might be cause for a Senior to wear some cologne/perfume. But Seniors don't just wear SOME cologne/perfume, do they? They wear A TON!!! I often wondered why. Now, I know the answer. Want me to share?

Let me first tell you a story that will illustrate how my learning was facilitated. As I mentioned previously, my cousin Dennis came to visit us over the weekend. In preparation for the visit, I wanted to do a bit of cleaning. Our house is always presentable, but I wanted to make sure that the home would be welcoming to an overnight visitor. I thought I'd wash the bed linens, comforter and blankets used by guests. I wanted to wash the furniture covers and quilts in the living room. Of course, I'd vacuum and dust and scrub the floors and fixtures in the kitchen and bathroom. I proposed this to Mom, who looked around and said "You don't need to do all that. Things look fine." After a bit of discussion on this, I gave in to Mom and told her that I'd just "straighten up".

Thank goodness for Fridays! Mom went off to the beauty salon and I got to work! I put batch after batch of laundry in the washing machine and dryer. I pulled out the vacuum (my beloved DYSON, one of the few possessions I would not sell!) and went to work in the living room, hallway and dining room. Got out the cleaning supplies and dusted all the furniture and knick knacks in the living room. Waited until Mom went to Bingo, then got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the kitchen, hallway and bathroom floors. Scrubbed the tub and fixtures in the bathroom. You know... a good cleaning. We do "weekly cleaning", but the deep cleaning you do for visitors or in the Spring is different. This was the DIFFERENT cleaning.

As I was doing this cleaning, I had an epiphany. I realized that Mom didn't SEE the dust. She didn't SMELL the dusty smell. I realized that as she aged, her senses were diminishing.

• Sign 1 - She wasn't seeing as well as she used to. She was wearing her magnification eyeglasses and was ALSO using a magnifying glass when she read the death notices in the newspaper. (Her preoccupation with death will be a future blog post!).
• Sign 2 - She wasn't hearing as well as she used to. She was turning the volume on the TV up to ridiculous levels. I could be in another room in the house and still hear the program she was watching perfectly. If I'd come into the house from the outside, I'd think the TV was blasting.
• Sign 3 - She wasn't tasting as well as she used to. She was using LOTS of pepper in her food lately. She was adding more salt than usual. She was buying MEDIUM salsa and thought it wasn't spicy when previously she thought MILD was the right salsa for her.

The light bulb finally went off. Senior Citizens couldn't smell how much perfume they were really wearing! Since their senses were diminishing, they thought they had on just enough when they were in reality wearing perfume/cologne to excess. I got it now! I finally found the answer to the burning question: Why Do Senior Citizens Wear Too Much Cologne?