Adult diapers

Sarita and I happened to stop in at a Walgreens last Saturday. The man in front of us at the checkout, somewhere in his late 60s or 70s, plopped his products on the counter. There were a couple of packages of . . . something that looked like feminine hygiene products--pads-- . . . but, somehow, I knew, weren't. There was something about the package that just didn't look right.

I looked more closely to read the label: incontinence pads.

Oh!

I almost wished I had not looked. I felt as if I was prying into his--or his wife's--personal affairs.

How embarrassing--to "tell all the world" that you or your closest loved one suffers from incontinence.

Or maybe not. Maybe it ought not to be embarrassing.

The man stood there resolutely, unflinchingly.

May I be so resolute when I reach that age and stage of life!

Final stage fashion: A model holds up a number matched to the type of adult diaper being worn while a screen in back explains its design at a fashion show September 25, 2008, in Tokyo organized by the Aging Lifestyle Research Center. AP PHOTOAnd then I discovered there was a fashion show two weeks ago in Tokyo, Japan, that featured adult diapers.

"Diapers are something that people don't want to look at," said Kiyoko Hamada of the Aging Lifestyle Research Center, a leading organizer of the show.

"But if you make them attractive, then people can learn about them more easily," she said.

Maybe we need to face up to these realities of life, uncomfortable as they are. May be when we do, they won't be so uncomfortable anymore.