My mother had always lamented that manufacturers of garments and everyday things in use did not take into account the older generation. I didn’t quite realise at the time what she was complaining about. I do now!
How difficult it is to button up cardigans and shirts and cuffs. It is advisable to button up your shirt and the cuffs before you put it on and just slip it over your head. Or don’t use shirts! Better to choose clothes that are easy to wear.
As for ladies’ tights… a nightmare. Some of us are agile enough to put them on still standing up but even pulling them up while sitting down ain’t that easy.
What about those zips at the back of a dress?
How on earth are you meant to wriggle and contort your body while trying to grab the zipper and then pull it up. Pulling it down is also a double jointed experience.
Boots? Can you pull off your own boots if there is no zip in them? Or have you slept with them still on and waited until next morning for someone to help you?
Kitchen stuff is no joke: opening glass bottles, tin cans and plastic bottles. The strength in your wrist isn’t what it used to be. There are some help gadgets on the market but you still need some strength to use these. You can find a plastic bottle cap ‘unscrewer’, an electric tin opener, a gadget to open larger jar tops and smaller glass bottle tops but you need some considerable strength to open the jars.
As for changing the large container for your water fountain, forget it. What about those biscuit packets? Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle, then you stick a knife into the side of the packet. Packets of nibbles have to be torn open from the top.
How often do you hit the sweet spot? You can just pull them open, spill half the contents on the floor and bemoan these dreadful packets. As for those plastic containers, where you are meant to lift one of the corners up to prize it open? Not that easy.
Shopping. Eyes aren’t what they used to be. The minuscule writing of the ingredients is not even visible with your reading specs on!
Some of the ingredients are unintelligible anyway. You need a plastic bag for your vegetables. Can you find the right end to open? I suppose licking your finger and thumb then playing around with one end of the bag then the other helps!
Let’s face it. There are a lot of healthy ‘golden age’ people around but, unlike plastic surgery, face lifts and Botox, hair colour, gym or Pilates, the fact remains that there is nothing you can do about older fingers. What a bore!