Becoming Mr Magoo

Mom was funny in church today. They just finished resealing the cultural hall’s floor and the entire building smelled like noxious fumes of paint and varnish. Mom couldn’t stand it. It was so bad that she grabbed one of my old dark socks she had found and covered her mouth and nose with that smelly sock to block out the toxic floor fumes. It was so humorous to see her sitting in church singing the opening hymn with her face covered with this long dark sock. It got worse when during the sacrament her cell phone rang and everyone turned to see her grapple with the phone while she kept the sock held closely to her mouth. Needless to say we came home from church a little early. I wish I had a picture.

I’m not doing so well myself. I went into the eye doctor and he pronounced a death sentence upon me – I have to wear Bifocals. That sounds so, so, so old and feble. It means that all the work I’ve done to stop the harsh realities of the old age freight train, it going to hit me anyway. We all know that we’re going to be hit by the bummer news, but to have it announced and written down in a prescription, ouch. He could tell it crushed me to cross that line into using Bifocals, but he said they can make the line disappear and so the only way people would know you have old lady glasses is when you weave your head up and down to see far then near then far then near again.

Sentencing me to Bifocals has caused me to reflect and conclude that old age is now engaged in a full frontal attack on my body. From head to toe there is some area under assault which requires me to employee some stupid and expensive defense mechanism. For the top of my head where I use Rogaine to keep my hair and dye to stave off the grey devils that make me look older than I am to the Athlete’s foot cream to keep the skin on my toes. Some very kind person named an infection of Ringworm as Athlete’s Foot. I like the fact that any part of me is described with the word Athlete. It gives the allusion of youth, beauty, and strength. Much better than that worm name, which is never confused with muscles or sport’s achievement.

To add to the pain of growing old, my neck muscles are rebelling in great pain as I hunch over the computer screen to read the small print. Yesterday eye doctor suggested putting everything on 150% font size to alleviate the stress on back, neck and eyes. What’s the next step using a cane to help me on the racquetball court. The trouble is – the larger font size really does help. So does this ridiculous brace I’m wearing on my arm to reduce the tennis elbow pain. I realized I needed something when a sweet little 82 year old widow nearly brought me to my knees a while back when I shook her hand because I was suffering from tennis elbow. She did apologize for causing me pain; but it isn’t the pain it’s the embarassement of being bested by a 90 pound octogenarian.

There is a whole list of maladies I could rummage over but I think it is time for my nap. It gives my body strength to fight off the aging process.