The nursing home has a big flat-screen television. And at ten in the morning, you can find white-haired women sitting in front of it, expressionless. TV blaring.
The woman to my left turns and asks, "Have you seen my daughter? I think she's coming today."
"Sorry, ma'am. Haven't seen her."
On TV: a fitness model explains the paramount importance of the perfect beach-body. This girl looks like she's made of plastic and Spandex.
The elderly woman has no problem talking over the noise. “HEY! That girl on television looks like my daughter. Do you know if my family's coming today?"
Fitness-girl is doing step-ups, and punching the air.
The
old woman goes on, "We didn't have time to exercise in my day. My daddy was a cotton-mill worker. We didn't know where our next meal was coming from. By the time I's fourteen, we'd moved twenty-one times around Alabama."
Now the girl on TV is demonstrating how to tone buttocks by squatting on a chair. “MY BUTT," the girl is saying, "is the most ESSENTIAL part of my being..."
The woman ignores the television. "I had a friend when I's young, she invited me and my little brother for supper.…