The Old Coot forgot to read the warranty.
Published October 5, 2011
This vehicle (the human body, or in my case, nearly human) that I’ve been traveling around in for so many years is a marvelous mechanism, or was, until the mileage passed the design limit. Obsolescence is built in, just like it’s built into the cars that roll off the assembly line. Cars are designed to last just past the warranty; the human body is designed to last 30 years, 15 to get it to maturity so it can reproduce, and then another 15 to make sure the offspring makes it far enough to continue the line.
When mine first started falling apart I didn’t notice it. The first clue I got was when I discovered that my arms were too short to read the paper. I was forty, ten years beyond the limit. I gave in, with a fight, and bought some reading glasses. Other stuff was going to pot too, but so gradually that I didn’t notice. The eyesight thing was tangible, undeniable. It made me understand that I would get old. That’s when most of us go through a mid-life crisis. I bought a red MG to get through mine.
A whole parade of rude awakenings came next. It was always with disbelief that I met my doctor’s latest accounting: “What do you mean, my knee is shot?” - “What did you say is wrong with the disc in my back?” – “What do you mean you hear a funny gurgle in my heart?” That was the anatomy phase of my life. I learned more about the human body and the malfunction thereof than a fourth year medical student. A lot of parts didn’t work properly, or at all, but at least I knew why, my doctor painstakingly explained it to me, time and again.
Still, it’s a wonderful machine. It only has one design flaw, an over active nervous system. Every square inch of the exterior of the vehicle is capable of causing excruciating, and debilitating pain. A lot of the interior too, but not all of it. The colon, for example, stays mute while a tumor the size of a grapefruit takes root. But, getting back to the nerves on the exterior, I get it that the brain needs to be alerted to danger: heat, cold, crushing, cutting. It needs to know the machine is under attack. But, something is out of kilter when an 85 pound, 4 foot 8 inch tall high school math teacher can disable a 6 foot 1 inch, 170 pound teenage student by simply pinching and holding on to the underside of his upper arm. That’s when I first discovered the design flaw.
I’ll concede; the nervous system has some socially redeeming value, i.e. keeping teenage troublemakers in line with a simple pinch, but how about a stubbed toe that brings tears to your eyes and has you limping for days – or an abscessed tooth – a tiny bee sting – or the 10,000 other nuisances that send your nervous system into full alert, incapacitating you in the process? The next time around, I’m ordering the model with a dimmer switch on the nervous system. Then maybe I can make it through the day without moaning in public because of a little hangnail.
The Old Coot follows T-rex into extinction.
Published October 12, 2011
We’re on the same path to extinction that dinosaurs traveled sixty-five million years ago. They started out as small lizards, gradually got bigger and then disappeared. It’s a routine event in the cycle of evolution. A species dominates its environment, eliminates the competition for food and grows larger. When it gets too big, it dies out, the victim of a minor change in the environment.
It took a long time, but we humans worked our way up the food chain. We beat out the saber tooth tiger, the wooly mammoth and the monsters of the deep. One by one they moved off the stage and we took the starring role. We mastered agriculture and the distribution of goods. We did pretty well for a long time, increasing our dominance of the planet, increasing our life span in the process. Then came the Big Slurpy, super sized meals and a host of temptations that lured us into the land of “Pig-out-ville.” We started growing. Up and out! The six-foot basketball stars of the fifties were replaced with the seven-foot players of today. Six-foot basketball players are as extinct as dinosaurs. High school linemen topped the scales at 200 pounds in my day; today they are in the backfield.
Everything about us is bigger: our houses, our cars, our furniture. Everything, except the seats we waddle down the aisle to on a jet plane. We ask for a seatbelt extension in hopes we won’t be forced to pay for two seats (How does that work? One for each cheek?). We go around like T-rex did at the end of his reign, growling at anyone who messes with our food. Especially, the stack of Twinkies we’ve hidden in the back of the linen closet.
The obese police are on our case. They beseech us to eat right, exercise and diet. They label our food, set out lists of banned morsels and try to bring us around, but it’s too late. We’re fat and we like it. So what if we can’t make it up a flight of stairs without gasping for breath, or bend over to pull on a pair of socks. Socks are over rated anyway. So what if our car lists to one side as we chug down the street. So what if a picture of us walking into Wal-Mart in an undershirt, shorts with a stretched out elastic waistband and flip-flops goes viral on U-tube.
We’re king of the jungle now, but it’s just a matter of time before a new species pushes us out of the spotlight. Some scientists think it will be the spiders, others are betting on the birds. I’m betting on the old coots. We’ve been extinct for years, waiting to make a comeback.
The Old Coot is a warmonger.
Published October 19, 2011
There is a war underway in my basement. Not exactly Godzilla versus King Kong, but pretty close. There also is a war going on in the streets. I call it the Great Mold War of 2011. The groundwork was laid decades ago, when the national media started an assault on mold. Story after story on the horrors of mold has been featured on TV: black mold, green mold, fuzzy mold and other forms of that mysterious substance that grows in damp places. It didn’t take long to have the whole country living in fear. No one dares admit it grows in their basement, in the dark corners of their shower stall or on the shady side of their house.
It’s another item on the long list of things the media has made us afraid of. We’re a cowering bunch, us “well informed” Americans. Let’s see, we’re afraid of coffee, black tea, french fries, cup cakes, thunder storms, snowfall, climate, bonfires, aerosol sprays, red meat and butter fat, to name a few. Now that we’ve been through another 100?, 300? or 500? year flood, mold is in the limelight.
The battle on the street is an intellectual affair. The one in my basement is a physical one. On the street, it’s vinegar (white distilled) versus bleach versus Shock Wave. Each faction has its proponents, but all are focused on the same outcome – “kill the mold.” I joined the bleach army at first. I sprayed the eye-burning, horrible smelling stuff on every joist and floorboard I could reach in my dank, damp, muck laden basement. My wife attacked it on the floors, from above. She won her skirmish. I lost mine. Green mold popped up everywhere.
I blasted it again, staggering around in muck, breathing toxic gas. To no avail! There it was, green, brassy and defiant. “Nice try, old coot,” it seemed to say. I switched sides. I went for the jug of Shock Wave. It worked! The green mold died. Most of it, anyway. A few more salvos got the rest. Or, so I thought. Then, my heating contractor walked off the job – halfway through. The snippy little deserter yelled to me, “You’ve got mold,” and then stepped into his van and fled for safety. I looked. He was right. There was green stuff here and there. DRY, green stuff. I brushed it off with a broom – he came back – the war was over, or so I thought.
Not so. New experts took center stage, “Tear out the floor,” they extolled. “Mold hides in the cracks; it will kill you!” Then along came Kevin. “What are you worried about,” he chided. “Your 200 year old house has been a mold factory since the 1800’s. It grows when it gets damp. It dies off when the humidity goes down. Besides, our basements are loaded with radon. It will kill the mold.” He’s right; I’m letting them fight it out. It’s comforting to sit here in my kitchen knowing that just beneath my feet, Godzilla (mold) and King Kong (radon) are battling away. I suppose the victor will come after me when the fight is over. But, I’m not afraid. I’m an old coot. Nothing is more toxic than that!
The Old Coot hates to, but has to look.
Published October 26, 2011
I’ve been studying feet of late. It’s not something I set out to do; it’s something I couldn’t avoid. They’re all over the place, riding around in flip-flops. All year long, even now in late October. You don’t want to, but you’re forced to look. It’s like an eclipse of the sun. The experts tell you to avert your eyes but you take a peek anyway. All you risk when staring at an eclipse is your eyesight. If you look at feet too long, you lose your mind.
Let’s be frank; feet are ugly! It’s not so bad if you just give them a quick glance: a lumpy blob with stubby fingers at one end, a bulbous glob connecting to a leg at the other end and mountain ridge that turns into a plateau in between. If you look hard, you realize what an odd appendage they are. Space alien, in a way. Some are gnarled; some are smooth; but all are strange looking things.
People try to improve on nature. They decorate the poor things: nail polish, little piggy went to the market toe rings, piercings, tattoos – but it doesn’t work. Human feet still don’t look any better than pig’s feet. It’s why I avoid going into taverns that have a jar of pickled pig’s feet on the counter. I think the bartenders put them there so they can tell when someone has had too much to drink. If a customer orders a pig’s foot, they cut him off.
Feet are like fingerprints; no two are alike. That’s another reason why it’s hard not to look. It’s like the freak show at the carnival. Except, you know what you’re getting there: a bearded lady, an ape man, a contortionist called Pretzel Man and Dirty Old Zola covered with snakes. A pair of human feet would fit right in but would always be a surprise.
Feet are weird enough to make good fodder for a coffee-table book. One that would beat out the “People who shop at Wal-Mart” picture book, the one that features some of the bizarre people that shop in pajamas, short shorts, bathing suits and other inappropriate garb. People with the oddest body shapes imaginable. I can just picture it. Two patrons at the library, one, thumbing through a book of Wal-Mart shoppers, the other looking at feet in flip-flops. First one, then the other, would turn a page, sneak a glimpse and then yell, “My eyes. My eyes!” The stern librarian with her hair in a bun would look up from her desk, her glasses sliding down to the end of her nose (I’m really dating myself with that imagery) and whisper loudly, like only a librarian can, “QUIET!” The other patrons would turn to look, see her scrunched feet swaddled in flip-flops and faint dead away. That’s feet for you.
