The following is from this week’s Placebo Gazette, written by Douglas Farrago, M.D.<\/p>\n
About 2 years ago, Diana and I were on a cruise through the Western
\nMediterranean aboard a Princess liner. At dinner we noticed an elderly
\nlady sitting alone along the rail of the grand stairway in the main
\ndining room. I also noticed that all the staff, ships officers,
\nwaiters, busboys, etc., all seemed very familiar with this lady. I
\nasked our waiter who the lady was, expecting to be told she owned the
\nline, but he said he only knew that she had been on board for the last
\nfour cruises, back to back.<\/p>\n
As we left the dining room one evening, I caught her eye and stopped to say
\nhello. We chatted and I said, “I understand you’ve been on this ship for the
\nlast four cruises.”<\/p>\n
She replied, “Yes, that’s true.”<\/p>\n
I stated, “I don’t understand,” and she replied, without a pause, “It’s cheaper
\nthan a nursing home!”<\/p>\n
Now the facts:<\/p>\n
The average cost for a nursing home
\nis $200 per day. I have checked on reservations at Princess and I can get long
\nterm discount and senior discount price of $135 per day. That leaves $65 a day
\nfor:<\/p>\n
Gratuities which will only be
\n $10 per day.<\/p>\n
I will have as many as 10 meals a day if I can
\n waddle to the restaurant, or I can have room service (which means I can have
\n breakfast in bed every day of the week).<\/p>\n
Princess has as many as three swimming pools,
\n a workout room, free washers and dryers, and shows every night.<\/p>\n
They have free toothpaste and razors, and free
\n soap and shampoo.<\/p>\n
They will even treat you like a customer, not
\n a patient. An extra $5 worth of tips will have the entire staff scrambling to
\n help you.<\/p>\n
I will get to meet new people every 7 or 14
\n days.<\/p>\n
TV broken? Light bulb needs changing? Need to
\n have the mattress replaced? No Problem! They will fix everything and apologize
\n for your inconvenience.<\/p>\n
Clean sheets and towels every day, and you
\n don’t even have to ask for them.<\/p>\n
If you fall in the nursing home and break a
\n hip, you are on Medicare. If you fall and break a hip on the Princess ship,
\n they will upgrade you to a suite for the rest of your life.<\/p>\n
Now hold on for the best! Do you want to see South America, the
\n Panama Canal, Tahiti,
\n Australia, New Zealand, Asia, or name where you want
\n to go? Princess will have a ship ready to go. So don’t look for me in a
\n nursing home, just call shore to ship.<\/p>\n
P.S. And don’t
\nforget, when you die, they just dump you over the side at no charge!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The following is from this week’s Placebo Gazette, written by Douglas Farrago, M.D. About 2 years ago, Diana and I were on a cruise through the Western Mediterranean aboard a Princess liner. At dinner we noticed an elderly lady sitting alone along the rail of the grand stairway in the main dining room. I also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}