I remember the period in my life, when I
could not wait to get older. I guess I
now despise myself with a vengeance for entertaining the thought.
It would seem that I yearned for the
freedom that adults had and viewed the many restrictions that were placed on
youth, by parents and society at large, with a measure of disdain. Like most young people I felt that getting
older afforded one the opportunity of doing things without seeking permission
for doing them or inviting any form of disapproval. I had no idea then why this was so, but I have
since grown up enough to realize that it was the growing up process. It was a
yearning for independence that infects all who are in their early and pre-teenage
years.
Once I reached the “use of reason” a little
after my teenage years ( rather late), I had the misconceived idea that I would
continue to live my youthful existence for the rest of my natural life. How wrong I was. Then suddenly I discovered
that I was fifty. I wondered how the
years had mysteriously flown by. I had
reached the height of my career but in the interim period, I made a whole lot
of mistakes, as most of us do, from which I learned very little. But then it struck me that perhaps in spite
of the three university degrees earned through sweat and crocodile tears, I was
still a slow learner (this remained my secret) but I was able to mask it with a
personality that surprised everybody but me.
At fifty, I still felt my youthfulness prompting me to think that fifty
was just a number and that I still had many good years to go. This was a form of denial but I clung on to
it. After all I still maintained my
youthful appearance (thanks to my mother’s generous genes) and was still able
to do most of the things that I did when I was in my teens. Just barely!!!
Before I knew it, I turned sixty. At sixty, I began to feel my body undergoing
more changes than I would have liked to admit.
As was put succinctly by an unknown writer, “You know that you are
getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.” I started turning grey and my face began to
develop lines that must have been playing hide and seek until now but I called
them character lines. My body began to
exhibit a concerning change. My muscles
began sagging, and my stamina to undertake anything physical became a
chore. It was at this stage that I began
admonishing myself about my infantile attitude about the benefits of getting
old. I had only myself to blame. I embarked on an ambitious exercise regime,
punctuated by exaggerated days of rest, but it merely succeeded in tiring me
out. Whoever said that exercise is the key to longevity?!!! After all exercise I was reminded through an
email merely gives you five more years in a nursing home. Was it worth it?
I soon turned seventy. Fortunately, my youthful look hid this fact from
all who knew and did not know me. I soon
discovered that I found it increasingly difficult to put on my socks and needed
the support of anything close by to put on my underwear and my pants for fear
of keeling over. Old age just has no
respect for one’s joints. Everything
seems to get stiff. And as though that
were not enough, you invariably look into the mirror and discover that hair
begins to grow around your ears and out of your nose. Your eye brows begin to grow into thatched
roofs over your eyes and your neck seems to copy the fashions set by
lizards. I soon discovered that I had to
lean on my wife to extract names of people that I knew so well in the past. It seemed that my memory was slyly
degenerating. Another victim of old age
put his finger right on it when he declared:
“First you forget names, then faces and finally, you forget to pull up
your zipper. It is worse when you forget
to pull it down.”
At seventy plus, I notice a remarkable
change in my friends. These were
individuals who were close to puritanical and learned to put on expressions of
disgust when someone told a tasteless joke. Now I notice a remarkable change in
their tolerance of “dirty jokes.” A few
of them will even try to amuse you with some that would cause moral degenerates
to blush. Unfortunately, I find it too
late to make new friends. I guess that
old age acts as a desensitizing agent to the feelings of those around us. I daresay it must have something to do with
the act of dying and a cry for help.
I now dread heading towards my
eighties. What further degeneration is
in store for me? I have decided to adopt
a wait and see attitude, though I have already become disgustingly impatient
and my eyesight has turned more towards “playboy” magazines, no matter how out-dated
the magazines might be. But then I try
to assure my wife (who isn’t fooled easily) that I read them because of the
stories with long pauses on a few pages when the “story” gets really
interesting. Is this the delusional part
of creeping into the eighties? If so, I
am very deluded and richly enjoy being so.
I will not speculate about turning
ninety. According to the many tests my
friends have been sending me from time to time on the email circuit to
determine my longevity, there is little hope for me getting there unless I am
put in an icebox somewhere, to be resurrected when I reach that age, hopefully
with a heap of Playboy magazines tucked under my arms.
(THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS
ADULT MATERIAL AND MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO READERS WITHOUT A SENSE OF HUMOUR.
(Reference is made to some body
parts. If you don’t have them, then you
are in denial. If you do have them then you cannot be offended if reference is
made to them)
Since I’ve become mildly computer
literate, I sometimes wish that I had never been so, not because little
knowledge is a dangerous thing, but because it has left me uncharacteristically
confused. I refer to the emails that I
receive from well meaning friends and those who are obviously not my
friends. I also wonder whether I should
hit “delete” whenever there is a remote suggestion that the email contains
anything of a “medical” or “religious” nature.
Let me explain myself. It started some time ago when I received an
email relating to heart problems and how they were caused. There were two words that stuck out, “diet”
and “exercise” as necessary components and strategies to generate healthy
hearts. I immediately put myself on a
shaky but well meaning exercise regime, for this requires discipline, when in
comes an email about the causes of strokes.
It recommended taking Aspirin every night. You’ve guessed. That evening, I began swallowing an eighty mg
of Aspirin. Before this became a habit,
a warning was issued that “Aspirin may not be good for you.” It has caused many to develop stomach ulcers
and bleeding, the email asserted. Now
the newest news flash via the internet is that Aspirin is not only good for
your heart but it is known to prevent certain cancers by twenty percent. It is
therefore a toss-up. You can either settle for stomach ulcers or prevent
cancer. There is not much of a choice, is there? I guess that I will just have to wait until
it is firmly established one way or another that Aspirin is what it is made out
to be. I shall, however, continue to
take it for headaches that result when trying to make sense out of these emails
with conflicting messages.
Before I could come to terms with
this confusion, I received another email about novel ways of obtaining an
erection with the magic drug Viagra. I
thought that I would put this email in my special file for future
reference. No sooner had I filed this
away, another email warned Viagra users that if the drug caused difficulty in
seeing or hearing one would be required to see a doctor immediately. What I found most hilarious was the warning
that cautioned users that if the erection continued for four hours or more,
that would be a bad sign, and a doctor would have to be consulted immediately.
What a crock!! I would have thought that
if someone had an erection for more than four hours he would be laughing all
the way to the bed. Finally, to
reinforce the efficacy of this wonder drug for salivating impotent guys, I
received an email advertisement depicting a man with an erection so firm that
his girl-friend was making head stands by gripping his vitals as though it was
nailed to the wall. Don’t worry....it is
making its rounds and is bound to reach you.....I mean this email.
Then uninvited, another email poured
in describing quite vividly ten ways to keep a girl happy. The first three were pretty ordinary and
mundane but the last three were quite embarrassing and the other four expected
men to be either contortionists or sexual deviants. This email deserved to be deleted but it
still remains in my archives for an occasional laugh.
Before I could get over this one, yes
you’ve guessed once again. In comes
another email warning readers about dietary practices. We are to avoid fats, tons of carbohydrates,
and concentrate more on protein. A long
list of desirable foods was attached and another list of foods to be avoided at
all costs. I could not find any foods
that I enjoyed in the list of desirable foods which to me was a list of foods
best served in a prison as a severe form of punishment that would probably be
forbidden by the Geneva Convention. The
whole idea was to avoid foods that contained a whole lot of cholesterol and on
examination, my list destined to shorten life.
So be it To my consolation, I
received another email explaining the research made at some ivy-league
university in the United States pointing out that the level of cholesterol in
human beings was largely determined by hereditary and that diet affected people
only minimally. I was about to say,
“See, I could have told you so!!!” but
being a modest person by gossip rather than by nature, I restrained myself from
inflicting invectives on my innocent computer.
Thank heavens that they make them so that they are incapable of
answering back.
During a heart attack, insisted the
next email, one was to be in a sitting position. The patient should, if possible, place an
Aspirin under the tongue, get to the main door and unlock it and then get to a
telephone and call 911 for help. A
friend or neighbour should also be alerted.
No wonder so many die of a heart attack if they are to follow these
instructions. The unfortunate guy or gal
is having a heart attack and is rolling with pain and is probably fighting to
remain conscious. How can he/she be
expected to follow a market list of instructions when fighting for breath???
Then women are supposed to reveal
very different symptoms when going through a heart attack. One symptom is pain in the jaw. I thought that came from excessive talking
and nagging. (This part is not for female consumption.) How on earth can that be a symptom of a heart
attack? If that was so, three-quarters
of the women in Ontario would be backing up Emergency in our hospitals.
Now the best for the last! I keep getting frequent emails from those who
mysteriously think that they know the size of my “you know what”. They assure me that they could give me a
generous three inch enlargement if I bought their product. My male ego gets pretty fractured by this
assertion in the first place. I contend
that if this “enlargement” was possible and there were takers, Walmart would
probably already be selling some oversized underwear and these are
conspicuously absent. I know this
because I have checked at least two outlets.
What is frightful, is that I now look
forward to these medical emails simply because I see the humour in them and now
use them as a tool to “forward” them to all those in my address book who, like
me, are potential hypochondriacs and who frighten easily.
No comments:
Post a Comment