I hadn't seen Pat in months, and I haven't been able to reach her by voice or text. Given that she's 84 years old, I figured that I should take a drive to her care home to see what was going on....
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Today's weather report predicted a strong chance of rain for the evening - but I decided to brave the weather anyway. So, around 6:30 pm, I decided to get dressed and drive across the river to Pat's care home. As I crossed the river, the clouds looked ominous, and I knew that heavy rains were going to come.
I arrived at Pat's place around 7:15, and the receptionist said "long time, no see". Then she told me how to use the new system to record visitors to the building. My face was scanned, and then I proceeded upstairs to see Pat. Strangely enough, we got into a serious conversation where we didn't disagree much. Then we talked about me being transgender and how she didn't understand why a man would want to be a woman. I noted that I didn't have severe gender dysphoria, but that I would rather have been born female - with all the problems that women have to deal with throughout their lives. The conversation then shifted to sex, but not in a graphic way. Specifically, I wondered why human males evolved to have 25%-33% more average body mass than human females, and how this is reflected in the first position we think of when a man and woman have sex. I contrasted this with Bonobo ape sexual behavior, wondering if there is any beneficial evolutionary advantage in how humans have sex.
Of course, I can't do our conversation justice. It was one of those "you had to be there" moments that will be forever lost in time. But I did look at Pat's phone to see why she says she is having trouble with the phone. And I found that she didn't have the phone's ringer set loud enough to be heard. Once I set the ringer to a loud enough volume, I tested it and it worked properly. Now, Pat should be able to hear the phone ring - until she screws up the volume again....
