Bingo, Boobs, and Belly Laughs

So another hysterical episode unfolded at my assisted living facility yesterday, immediately after Bingo.

Now, Charlene is one of our most devoted Bingo players. At 93 years old, she’s sharp as a tack, with only the occasional senior moment that sneaks in when nobody’s looking. Charlene is confined to a wheelchair after breaking both hips, but don’t let that fool you—she can scoot that chair around faster than some people drive golf carts.

When she was younger and upright, I suspect she was a tall woman. Even seated, she towers over most of the old dears, even those who can still walk. She’s also what my grandmother would have called “well-built,” and judging by events that unfolded later, I think Mother Nature blessed her quite generously in the “chest department”.

On Fridays, we play for the grand prize of a whole dollar on the Full Card Bingo. To you and me, that’s pocket lint money. To these folks, it’s the equivalent of winning the Powerball. What they’d actually spend it on, Lord only knows!

Charlene didn’t win the dollar jackpot, but she did win a regular Bingo round and proudly collected her quarter. You’d have thought she’d just purchased a beach house.

She’s from the Midwest and speaks with a twang delivered through a high-pitched voice that occasionally sounds like a smoke alarm trying to sing country music. If she’s losing, she’ll tease the winners with things like, “I love you,” or, “We’re gonna talk later.” Everyone smiles sweetly while secretly wishing she’d lower the volume by about three notches.

Then there’s old dear ole Dick Barnaby.

Dick turned 100 this March. He was still driving around his neighborhood in New York at 97 until a nasty bout of flu turned into pneumonia. These days he’s on oxygen and living with us.

Dick is as deaf as a fence post. Since I’ve been there—a little over a month—he’s gone through enough hearing aids to stock a small electronics store. The oxygen tubing and hearing aid wires seem locked in a daily battle to the death. The hearing aids lose the battle every time.

Yesterday, however, hearing aid number 8 had been repaired, and Dick was thrilled to be back at Bingo.

Now Dick is a big man with a booming voice. When he shouts “BINGO!” he does it with the enthusiasm of a cruise ship horn. Because he can’t hear himself, he assumes nobody else can either. Every time he wins, half the ladies jump out of their seats, despite claiming they can’t hear a thing.

And yesterday, Dick won the coveted one-dollar Full Card.

His “BINGO!” nearly registered on the Richter scale.

This was after I’d spent the entire game standing beside him, yelling numbers directly into his orbit and letting him read my lips like we were negotiating a hostage release.

Anyway, after Bingo, everyone started migrating toward the Uno table. We left Dick where he was because moving him, his oxygen machine, his tubing, and his rather substantial pee bag felt like a workplace hazard waiting to happen.

Charlene came scooting over in her wheelchair, determined to secure a seat and, more importantly, stash her precious quarter winnings into her shorts pocket.

In the process, she hoisted up her shirt.

Quite a bit.

What Charlene failed to realize was that her once-voluptuous bosom that had now migrated south over the decades, was now making a guest appearance above her shorts waistband and everyone around her had their eyes locked on the whole spectacle.

And unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—Dick Barnaby had a front-row seat.

Now Dick may be deaf, but his eyesight is apparently still operating in glorious high definition.

I watched a grin slowly spread across his face.

Which then turned into a very large grin.

The kind of grin a man gets when he unexpectedly stumbles upon something he probably hasn’t locked his eyes on in a couple of decades.

I said, as quietly as I could to a somewhat deaf 93 year old, “Charlene, you’d better put those puppies away before you give poor Dick a coronary.”

Without lowering her shirt, she looked at me and said most indignantly, “Nothing’s showing.”

I burst out laughing.

“Well then,” I said, “why is Dick suddenly the happiest man in Florida?”

At that point, we both looked over at Dick.

Apparently deciding Charlene shouldn’t feel embarrassed alone, he had lifted up his own shirt till it was just under his chin.

There sat Dick’s impressive belly and his own set of droopy man-boobs, proudly on display for the entire room.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Then the room exploded.

People were laughing so hard they could barely breathe. Charlene was laughing. Dick was laughing. I was laughing so hard I nearly needed oxygen myself.

Honestly, where else can a quarter, a bingo card, and two centenarian flashers create the highlight of your workday?

Man, I love my job.