A Senior Dilemma Poem by Donal Mahoney

Couples age and a sign of age is when
the husband hires someone to shovel snow
and the wife hires a cleaning lady.

Sometimes the wife doesn't like the fellow
and the husband doesn't like the cleaning lady.
But he keeps the same fellow shoveling

for years and his wife hires a new cleaning lady
every other week until the husband grows weary
of dressing up to meet them so he disappears

upstairs and watches TV in his underwear.
Finally his wife hires the right cleaning lady but
the husband goes upstairs because he figures she's

a goner as soon as she comes through the door
armed with her broom, buckets and mops.
But this lady gets along fine with his wife

and comes every week for several years.
Every time she comes, he disappears upstairs
and watches TV in his underwear.

Too late for him to meet this lady now.
What's worse, every winter his wife suggests
he find someone else to shovel the snow

even though the fellow she doesn't like
has shoveled the snow five years or more.
Things will settle down when one of them dies.