Grab bars in the shower is a damn convenient feature. At any age.

It took me a few months to notice that my small one-bedroom graduate student apartment in Princeton was what building inspectors would call “accessible.” The doorways are a little wider than you’d expect, and in the bathroom, there are aluminum grab bars along the walls near the toilet, in the shower, at various other points where a person might reasonably need to arrest a fall.

I don’t know why I didn’t realize this when I walked through the empty apartment last September, but I’m pretty sure I know why the person showing the apartment to me didn’t mention it. She thought, not unreasonably given my salt-and-pepper hair (mostly salt, to be honest) and other physical cues, that a ground-floor apartment with a nearly fall-proof bathroom was just the thing. And the extra-wide doors would easily accommodate the wheelchair or old-man scooter that was clearly in the (near) future.

I’m glad I didn’t