4 September - Perfume... not

Sometimes the world I wish to inhabit (doing nothing all day but reading, writing, having sex, exercising, travelling, reorganising my closet) is even further away than usual. It’s when you find yourself trawling the internet to find a product that may help ageing relative who has lost some/a lot of control of sphincter muscles and cannot tell if about to fart or not and more importantly can’t prevent that happening till she’s gone ‘outside’ as any polite person would do. Thankfully we’re not at the stage of leaking faecal matter yet. Plagued by this problem which she believes will make her a social pariah, she has resolved not to go anywhere enclosed thus reducing social life considerably. No trains, planes or coaches, gads, not even church??? I wonder.
So am reading up whilst trying to find if the paranoid Japanese may have invented some quick perfume release incontinence pads to mask any odours or if I should phone any GP in Vegas or LA Beverley Hills and they’d tell me where to buy or what these things are called. Various words sequences I’ve put in search engines have failed to throw up anything useful.

The info I’m gathering is not filling me with mirth. So it would appear that everybody’s sphincter muscles become progressively weaker and there is nothing you can do. Great. Ah, but it affects mostly women who’ve had children, the strain of expelling baby did not just affect vagina and urethra but the anus as well. Hurrah, that won’t be my case. Oh but reading further I probably have had more anal sex than several mothers I know so will not be immune to this weakening. But then again won’t suffer as much as porno actresses who've had to accommodate Rocco Siffredi. Yeay!.

Is it my job as older than a bevy of girlfriends to let them know they/we have this coming? Some sooner than others? I know only this week Brad Pitt is lamenting the changes in his face/body upon reaching 43 (the expanding brood can’t have helped) but do we all really have to go through this? Just had a flashback to when as kids we didn’t want to go visit some old grandaunt in some retirement home because ‘It smells in her room mum!’. And there’s nothing the poor old wretch could have done. It’s all very well spending hundreds on facials ladies, it won’t prevent you from farting indiscriminately and soiling the Agent Provocateur knickers. And your husband could still be bodybuilding but have piles or pancreatic cancer to deal with and some anal leakage too. This is no fun. This is not on. Old age sucks big time. But carry on with the pelvic floor muscles strengthening exercises. Every little helps.