The old coot lights up.
Published July 4, 2012
My check engine light came on the other day. I did the usual; I ignored it, hoping it would go out on its own. But, it didn’t. So, I went into action; I checked the gas cap to see if it was tight. That didn’t do anything. I had one trick left, disconnect the battery, wait a minute or two and then reconnect it. Sometimes that works. But, instead of getting that drastic, I went on the Internet to see if I could learn why a check engine light might turn on. It didn’t help. The list was 17-pages long. I gave up, got out the roll of black electrical tape and covered it up.
I don’t know who invented the check engine light. If I did, I’d get in line with the rest of the people who want to punch her in the nose (more about blaming it on a “her” later). It would be a long line. 193 million drivers are behind the wheel, according to the latest government estimates, and every single one has been victimized by their check engine light. It’s just plain blackmail, designed by the auto manufacturers to get us into their repair shops. It’s a lot like having a new baby in the house. It cries and you go into a panic. “What’s wrong?” The list of possibilities is about as long as the 17 pages of reasons a check engine light comes on. Wet diaper? – rash? – gas bubble? – colic? – hungry? – earache? It could be anything. Eventually we become skilled parents and can distinguish between a wet diaper cry and a gas bubble cry. Not so with a check engine light; we never get skilled at figuring out what it means.
The only thing more baffling, at least for us old coots, is a check-wife-light. It’s not a light, not really; it’s a look that sends a coldness across the room. “What?” we naively ask, knowing it’s something we did, or didn’t do, said or didn’t say, or didn’t say right like when asked how she looks in the blue dress and we say, “Great! It doesn’t make you look as hippy as the red one.” Sometimes it’s not doing or saying something stupid. Sometimes it’s simply not noticing something. When the check-wife-light is on we glance around the room in a clueless panic and spot a new pair of drapes. “Those new drapes look great! They go perfect with the couch.” The check-wife-light doesn’t go out. Later, we learn that the “new” drapes have been hanging there for nearly a year. It’s why I’m sure the check engine light was invented by a woman. It operates on the same principle as the check-wife light. Now, I’m going to get those looks and feel a coldness everywhere I go. But, at least I’ll know why. I shot off my big mouth again!
The Old Coot is wrapped up.
Published July 11, 2012
Here we go again. More nagging from the nanny police. This time it comes from the Center for Biobehavioral Health at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. (Wow, that’s a mouthful.) Researchers at the hospital studied reams of data on the National Electronic Surveillance System and discovered that over the last 20 years, 43,378 children were treated for injuries caused by falling with sippy cups, pacifiers or baby bottles in their mouths. They want us to take away those dangerous devices the minute little Bobby or Susie stands up and starts to waddle across the room.
It’s not a law. Not yet! But, these things always start slow, with advice or a recommendation. Eventually, the politicians get involved and pass a law. In this case, a “sippy-cup” law. It’s what they do to solve a problem. Make it against the law! The next time you take your kid to the E.R. with a split lip you can expect to get a, “Tsk, Tsk,” from the medical staff. Maybe a visit from a social worker.
Human nature is often the target of the nanny police. They try to change it with laws and regulations. Most of the toddlers I’ve been around put things in their mouth. Every thing they get their hands on. Give them a wooden block and they stick it in their mouth. Take away the big bad three: sippy-cups, baby bottles and binkies and the accident rate won’t change. The only thing that will change, is the thing in their mouth at the time of their fall. And, toddlers fall all the time. It’s how they learn to control their balance. They get pretty good, pretty fast, and without advice from a federal entity with a name longer than the declaration of independence. And, without a new law to save kids from “so-called” inept parenting. People have raised kids for eons without help from the nanny police. That’s what grandparents are for!
You probably think I’m over reacting to an innocent study of toddler injuries. That I’m overdoing it by predicting a future with tough sippy cup laws. Maybe so. But, my fear goes deeper. If those same researchers shift their focus to old coots, they’ll come after me. We fall down a lot too. Not with sippy cups in our mouths, but it won’t matter. We’ll find ourselves encased in bubble wrap and tied to our rocking chairs. Ultimately, the bubble wrap will cover our mouths, to stop us from telling everyone what wrong with the world and how much better it was in the good old days.
A toothless future ahead for the old coot.
Published July 18, 2012.
I took inventory the other day; I counted my teeth. It’s something you need to do every once in a while when you’re an old coot. I had 32 teeth when I turned twenty-one. Four were wisdom teeth, though I had no wisdom at the time, just the teeth). Now, I’m down to twenty-five. And, I’m not a hockey player or a fighter. My last tooth-jarring scuffle came when I was twelve years old. It took place at YMCA’s Camp Arrowhead on what is now a private lake near Little Meadows, Pennsylvania. A big kid was shoving around my friend Woody so I jumped in, pushed him aside and told him to stop. He beat the stuffing out of me.
I didn’t lose any teeth, just a load of pride and an inkling that my perceived prowess was suspect. Something I proved beyond doubt over the next several years. I had watched too many cowboy and Indian movies, where the good guy (most notably Roy Rogers) could beat up a gang of bad guys with one hand tied behind his back. I thought I was just like him. It was a hard road to the truth.
No, the demise of my toothful grin was not the result of violence. It started with my wisdom teeth; they became impacted one at a time over a twenty-year stretch. When the last one left me I was in my forties and more concerned about a vision problem than a tooth problem. I couldn’t read the paper; my arms weren’t long enough anymore. So there I was, well into a second mid life crisis (my first came at age 30), half blind and down to 28 teeth. Twenty-eight isn’t bad. It’s an even number, fourteen on the top, fourteen on the bottom, one over the other so they function as designed.
But then along came the old coot roulette wheel. It spins and spins. One day it lands on the sore knee space, another day on the aching back slot. Then the cataract spot. The wheel keeps spinning and eventually lands on the broken tooth space. An absent-minded crunch on an unpopped popcorn kernel breaks off the back quadrant of a molar. You get it fixed. You get the speech that all medical personnel deliver to you at the end of every visit. “You have to expect this at your age.”
Now you’re paranoid. Afraid that one misplaced chew will put you back in the dentist’s chair. Time passes and you forget. The roulette wheel comes back to the broken tooth space. You do it again. This time on a Sugar Daddy. It should be against the law to sell Sugar Daddies to old coots. We should be asked for proof of age, and turned away if we’re over 60. The tooth is beyond repair, so you have it pulled. Then it happens again! And, again! Oh sure, multi-thousand dollar root canals and crowns could save them, for a while (maybe, no guarantees). But old coots are cheap .So, now I’m down to twenty-five and still counting. But, I’ve finally figured out why they call it a TOOTH-brush and not a TEETH-brush. Because, eventually that’s all I’ll need. An old coot with one tooth!
The Old Coot gives a darn!
Published July 25, 2012
I learned how to sew when I was eight years old, at a summer school craft class. We made stuffed animals and learned sewing basics: how to thread a needle, how to tie a knot so the stitches stayed put, and the difference between a running stitch and an overcast stitch. My mother improved my knowledge and let me mess around with her sewing machine. She hated it because it wasn’t a Singer; I suppose she hoped I’d wreck it so she could finally get one.
But, I didn’t wreck it. I took it apart and put it back together again. Then I knew how it worked, sort of. Off I went on a sewing binge. My aptitude got a full test when I was in Junior High School. Pegged pants were the rage, tapered at the bottom so tight you could barely get you foot in. I couldn’t get my mother or father to spring for a tailor to alter my pants. They considered the fashion a ridiculous waste of money, so I dusted off the sewing machine and went to town. I pegged my own pants. Unfortunately, I didn’t achieve a gradual taper from the waist to the pant cuff like a real tailor would. My version had the alteration start at the knee and go straight down to the bottom. I’d crafted a perfect pair of riding pants.
I wore them to school. The bottom looked cool, nice and tight like it should. The puffy upper section was quite a sight. I spent the entire day with my arms at my side, hiding the puff. That was the end of my fashion design career. I stuck to sewing basics. Now that my mother knew I could sew, she handed me her sewing basket whenever I complained of a missing button or a rip that needed to be sewn up. She made it a morality issue, “You don’t want someone to do something for you that you can do for yourself do you?” So, I sewed my way through childhood. I even mastered the use of a darning egg and the stitching pattern that would hold up to the pressure of a toe striving for freedom. It was an era where people darned socks instead of throwing them away.
I hated repairing socks. All that weaving back and forth, over and over again, was too much. Now, I know a short cut. Sixty years too late. I learned it from John Vanderzyde, a Canadian citizen who emigrated from Holland a few years after World War II. He was a teenager, fishing in a stream when thousands of German paratroopers dropped out of the sky and occupied his homeland. After the war there weren’t any jobs, so he migrated to Canada. I met him in Florida this past winter, and was invited to his 84th birthday party. “Darn socks with a darning egg?” he said to me, and then revealed his secret. “I buy knee high, tube socks and when the toe pokes through, I cut off the end and sew it straight across. When my socks have been repaired so many times that they turn into ankle socks, I throw them away. EH!” (And, I think I’m an old coot! I’ve got so much to learn!)
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