The Old Coot is elbow challenged.
By
Merlin Lessler
I’m sitting in a window seat at the Owego Kitchen, watching
two robins waddle around, pecking at worms in front of the post office. Not too
exciting you say. You’re wrong. It is. For an old coot, anyhow. It’s a nice
distraction from a changing world. When you’re young, you can’t wait for change
– to graduate from school – to get a job – to get your own place - to get
married – to buy a new car. Eventually, you go the other way; you don’t want
change; you want things to stay the way they are. That’s when you officially
become an old coot. You’ve decided that change is not for the better, at least not
for you.
It means another friend moved away; he gave up winter and
moved to Florida or Arizona. It means your favorite restaurant just went out of
business. It means you’ve heard yet another clerk say, “They don’t make that
anymore.” You just want to block out the
changes that pop into your life in an endless parade: eggs are bad for you,
coffee is bad for you, meat is bad for you, it can’t be repaired, the lawn
mower won’t start unless you squeeze the handle (and keep squeezing it the
entire time you are mowing). CHANGE!
UGH!
Today’s change is my elbow. The right one, to be specific.
It hurts. It’s a new pain; I’ve never had it before. So, I sit here drinking
coffee with my left hand, dribbling a few drops on a clean shirt, distracting
myself by watching two robins. Eventually, I’ll have to get back to the elbow
and try to puzzle it out, to wonder why I didn’t appreciate it last week when
it felt so good. And, I’ll have to face the question, “What did you do to it?”
When I reply, it will be the same answer I’ve had for every other new pain.
“Nothing!”
I did some “old man” push-ups (standing up and leaning into
a wall). I moved some books to different shelves and sawed a board in half with
a hand saw. Not really much of anything! I hate this conversation; it always gets
me the same response, from everybody I complain to: my doctor, my wife, my
friends. “You’ve got to expect that at your age!”
I’ve learned to deal with these things, to turn lemons into
lemonade as the saying goes (easier said than done, I might add). I’ll complain
enough to get out of some unpleasant chores. I’ll make a sling or buy an
elastic elbow support to let the world know that I’m sporting an injury. I’ll
tell people it's tennis elbow. I won’t mention that the last time I played
tennis was in 1991 when my daughter Amy beat me for the first time. That’s when
I paraded out the tennis elbow excuse. Now, the pain that I faked so long ago,
has finally arrived. It would be even more embarrassing than losing to a
seventeen-year-old if I had to reveal the real cause. I figured it out as I sat
here watching the robins. The pain comes from constantly walking around with a
coffee container in my hand. My elbow finally gave out. I have coffee elbow! Ouch!
Comments, complaints. Send to mlessler7@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment