March 11, 2015 Article

The Old Coot unveils your future.

By Merlin Lessler

This is a heads up for those of you over 50 and heading toward Old-Cootville. People younger than 50 don’t think they’ll ever get there, that their youth is eternal. But you people in your 50”s have come to realize, “Yes, I will get old someday!” Your body has provided enough evidence at the mid-century mark to know it’s true, though you cling to the belief that it is way, way off in the misty future. It is! In years. But, those decades will fly by so fast your head will spin, like mine does every day when a mirror, a limp, or the failure of some body part shows signs of malfunction and slaps me “up-side-the-head” with a, “I told you eons ago that this was comings.”

The funny thing about it is you never fully accept it. If you are a jogger, you switch to speed walking and then just plain walking. Golfers learn to live with scores 5, 10 or 15 strokes higher than when in their prime. You give up showing your children and grandchildren how you can still do a running front flip in the back yard. Handrails start to come into use. You adjust. Sort of, but still think in the back of your mind that it’s a temporary aberration, you’ll soon recover and be your old self, that your trick knee will shape up and you can do some moderate jogging. Then, you cross the street and a car coming fast around the corner gets you scurrying to the curb; you finish your escape with a limp and a new pain that reminds you of the lie you’ve been telling yourself.

Still, you continue to think, this old man thing might be temporary, because the aches and ailments ease up, even disappear, but soon enough, new ones come your way. That sore knee feels OK but now your neck won’t turn to the left. The stiffness lessens and your foot gets floppy, making you stumble every other step. It goes away and a series of leg cramps hit you every time you sit for any length of time. Usually in a public place like a restaurant where you have to jump up to kick it out, much to the chagrin of your dinning partners. It’s a game of Russian roulette. You never know what’s going to come out of the barrel in the old-man-gun.

So you’re 50, and now depressed, because some old coot read your tarot cards. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can look at it as the greatest adventure of your life; on par with climbing Mount Everest. It’s just that the elevation isn’t quite as lofty, just to the top of a set of stairs. You don’t hear me complaining. I look on it as one of those “glass half full” things; it could be a lot worse; my memory could fail and I’d start to repeat myself, or my memory could fail and I’d start to repeat myself.

March 4, 2015 Article

The Old Coot is a matchmaker.

By Merlin Lessler

A lot of single people sign up with E-Harmony-Dot-Com, Matchmakers or some other such organization in search of the perfect mate. They fill out complicated questionnaires, then a computer program produces a list of likely matches: people with similar backgrounds, worldviews and other characteristics that supposedly determine long-term compatibility, but they miss a critical screening tool, the old coot coffee shop test.

It works like this. You get a candidate’s name from the match making company, then arrange to meet at a coffee shop (Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts are the best for this process, but other places that have lines and require choices will work too). Tell the prospect to wear a red scarf and you’ll do the same. Get there early, hide the scarf and sit in a discrete location where you can watch the line. If the candidate is a type “X”, they will walk to the counter and say something like, “I’ll have a medium coffee, cream, no sugar,” and hand the clerk cash or a credit card and complete the transaction. (If it’s a Starbucks they can’t say medium with cream; they have to say “Grande, with room, and put the cream in themselves at the little table off to the side.)

A type “Y,” on the other hand, will only step up to the counter after the person behind them in line taps them on the shoulder and says, “It’s your turn.” The clerk says, “How may I help you?” Y stares back with a look that makes you think they were asked to name the capital of North Dakota and its population. After an awkward pause, Y responds with, “What’s good?” Now understand, Y has been in line for many, many minutes, gazing at the menu, the racks of donuts and the display case of specialty treats. The server responds with, “Everything! What do you like?” And, starts making suggestions. The banter goes back and forth. Suggestions are discarded, one by one. Eventually, Y changes from a “don’t-know-what-I-want” customer to a fussy customer. “I’ll have a medium coffee, one-half regular and one-half decaf, two and one-half sugars, a shot of espresso, a squirt of whip cream, half & half on the side and make sure you add some ice. Your coffee is always too hot.”

And yet, it’s not over; it’s time to pay, which comes as a shock to Y. He/she (this isn’t a sexist thing; both men and women can be a Y.) starts to fumble, patting pockets or digging deep in a purse, finally locating cash or a credit card to present to the clerk. Payment is made and then Y says, “Oh! I need a bagel; what kind do you have?”  The whole process starts all over again. The people in line behind Y look at each other and roll their eyes.

Now, it’s time for you to decide whether to put on the red scarf, or not. No matter how it comes out, at least you’ve had an interesting people-watching experience. Us old coots do it all the time. We’re not looking for a mate; we just love watching the show.