Didn't My Skin Used to Fit? (11 page)

3:45 P.M.—Restroom break

4:00 P.M.—See stage show. Try to convince family and friends that it should count as a ride since a slight aftershock hit while we were there, but they don’t buy it.

6:10 P.M.—Dinner break

7:35 P.M.—Ride bumper cars

7:45 P.M.—Still trying to figure out how to get my car to move.

8:11 P.M.—Restroom break

8:25 P.M.—Hold jackets, cameras, souvenirs, and doggie bags of friends and family while they ride dinosaur ride. I pass on the ride. (I watched
Jurassic Park
one too many times.)

9:30 P.M.—Walk by lockers on our way back to the car. Family and friends remind me how smart we were to not waste our fifty cents on a locker.

10:45 P.M.—Arrive home. Sit in vibrating recliner. It’s exhilarating, free, and I didn’t even have to wait in line for it.

To err is human. To forgive is simply not our policy.
—Source unknown

34
Is There a Doctor in the House?

There’s nothing that’ll make a person feel older than having to deal with a young professional. The older we get, the younger pilots, police officers, lawyers, and doctors look. Especially doctors. I don’t know about you, but I feel uncomfortable going to a doctor who has a Scooby Doo sticker on his residency certificate.

But regardless of how young he looks, we still see him regularly. Why is this? Because medical care is important to us. It’s important at any age, but it’s especially important as we get older. We’re hoping to hold up, but just as a car needs repairs and replacement parts as it ages, so do our bodies. We could be chugging along fine on our factory-installed original equipment, but after those first one hundred thousand miles or so, things could start to go haywire. Our battery doesn’t charge like it used to, our fan belt gets a little frayed, and we might even discover a crack in our engine block. And if that’s not bad enough, we can develop an embarrassing leak in our transmission. We need help, maybe even a complete overhaul.

Fortunately, I’ve only had a few things go wrong with my engine over the years. I’ve had a couple of benign breast cysts removed, some laser surgeries performed on my eyes, and my pancreas needs a little help to work properly. Other than that, I haven’t had to spend too much time in the pit, and for that I’m thankful.

But since ours is the age when things can start to go wrong, good health insurance is important. If you don’t have private insurance, chances are you have an HMO. I’ve had both. One thing I’ve learned about HMOs is that they aren’t all the same. Some are terrific and are equipped to meet whatever medical need might arise. Others fall short of the mark.

To aid you in your search for a good HMO, the following list is provided:

YOU KNOW YOU’VE JOINED A CHEAP HMO WHEN . . .

• Resetting a bone involves duct tape.

• For a second opinion, they refer you to last week’s episode of
ER
.

• Their EKG machine bears a striking resemblance to an Etch A Sketch.

• Their IV solution looks an awful lot like Kool-Aid.

• They get their X rays developed at Walgreen’s.

• They recycle their tongue depressors.

• You get a discount if you make up your own hospital bed.

• Their ambulance rents itself out as an airport shuttle on the off-hours.

• Their thermometer reads to 400 degrees and tastes an awful lot like turkey.

• Their mammogram machine doubles as the waffle iron in the hospital cafeteria.

All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.
—Source unknown

35
It’s All in the Attitude

Getting older is beyond our control. No matter how much we’d like to, we can’t stop time from marching on. However,
growing
old
is something we can control. That’s where attitude enters in.

When we look in the mirror, we can either see a life that’s half over or a life that’s half begun. We can spend all our time dwelling on the mistakes of our past or we can spend it focused on the hope of the future. We can count our wrinkles or count our blessings. The choice is ours.

It’s been said that we live the first half of our life for success and the second half for significance. I agree. In our twenties and thirties, most of us were consumed with our careers, attaining financial stability, and perhaps raising a family.

By the time we reach the second half of our life, our priorities change—or at least they should. Many of us have had to watch our parents’ health decline or fail. At this juncture, we are forced to face the cruel reality that our time on this earth is limited. When we fully realize this, the reports and meetings that seemed so important and pressing suddenly lose their urgency. We spend less time thinking about the mortgage on our home and more about the people in it.

When I was driving my mother to her chemotherapy treatments, she would often remark about the flowers along the side of the road. She noticed them as if for the first time. Of course, she’d driven that road many times before, and the flowers were there each spring, but she wasn’t looking at them then. She was usually on her way to work and had a host of other things on her mind. Now, battling cancer, she appreciated their beauty to the fullest.

The second half of life is a chance to get our priorities straight. It’s a time to realize that having the last word isn’t as important as having a conversation. It’s time to quit trying so hard to get ahead of the Joneses and to try a little harder to walk beside them and be their friends. It’s time to realize that it’s not going to matter how much money you leave your family when you die. What is important is how much of yourself you leave with them.

By the time you’re eighty years old, you’ve learned everything. You only have to remember it.
—George Burns

36
I’m My Own Grandma

There’s an old country song titled ‘‘I’m My Own Grandpa.’’ If my memory serves me correctly, it’s about a man whose relatives have married people they’re already related to by law—in-laws, stepparents, step-siblings, etc., eventually making him his own legal grandfather.

Now, while the story in the song may be highly unlikely, there’s another way to become one’s own grandfather, grandmother, mother, or father. Just live long enough.

They say as we grow older, we begin to look and act like those who’ve gone on before. My sister, Melva, is becoming my mother right before my eyes. Not only does she look like her, she has her expressions and even sounds like her. I wish she would have sounded like her years ago when I was in high school, then when my teachers called the house, they could have talked to Melva instead of Mom and I wouldn’t have gotten grounded so often.

One of my mother’s favorite sayings was ‘‘Food takes the place of sleep.’’ There’s absolutely no official documentation to this, but Mom said it as though it were the latest finding of the American Medical Association. She honestly believed that if you had to work late, a meal was as good as a nap. (Maybe that’s why I gained those fifteen pounds.)

My sister says things like that now. She reacts to situations as Mother would have, is a hard worker, and has a heart for others. She may not be her own grandpa, but in so many ways she has become her own mother.

I don’t remember seeing my mother in my sister in her younger years. When my sister was a teenager, she was just Melva. Even in her twenties she was Melva. She didn’t start turning into Mom until recently. The forties seem to be about the time this phenomenon hits. We’re going along fine, being our own person, and then one day we look in the mirror and are suddenly struck with the image of one of our parents staring back at us.

I have some of the characteristics of both my parents. I’ve already mentioned that I inherited my father’s eyebrows, but I also have his sense of humor. I have my mom’s appreciation for a good joke, her smile—slightly tilted to one side—and I have her almond-shaped blue eyes. Both of my parents were tall with high cheekbones, and I’ve inherited those qualities, as well. But the person I believe I’m starting to look like the most is my maternal grandmother. I have a picture of her over our bed, and the resemblance between the two of us is becoming more apparent with each passing day.

When you get down to it, we’re all a combination of all our ancestors. We might have our father’s nose, our mother’s eyes, our grandmother’s ears, and our great-grandfather’s chin. Depending on our family, this could be a good or a bad combination. Yet no matter what physical characteristics we’ve been blessed with, or stuck with, our inner qualities are what are most important. In other words, heirs should be more grateful for the good judgment they inherited from their father, the gentle spirit they got from their mother, the sense of fairness that was passed down from their grandfather, and the self-esteem imparted to them from their grandmother than they are for whatever physical characteristics they may have inherited.

For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
—2 Corinthians 4:18 KJV

37
When You’ve Got It, You’ve Got It

I couldn’t believe the nerve of this guy. Had he no manners? Didn’t he realize his Neanderthal behavior wasn’t appreciated in the least? Did he not know he was being obnoxious and making a scene? Couldn’t he see that I had a cell phone and could call 9-1-1 at a moment’s notice?

Perhaps I should start at the beginning. It happened at the post office near my house. I had driven there to mail a letter, and as soon as I got out of my car, he started howling and making wolf calls at me. They were loud, they were rude, and they were annoying.

I walked to the post office entrance, trying my best to ignore his junior high behavior, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult.

‘‘Grrrowwwooofff!’’ he howled loud enough for anyone within a two-block radius to hear. ‘‘Grrrowwwooofff! Grrrowwwooofff!’’ The guy was pathetic.

Finally, I’d just had it. I was ready to give him a piece of my mind or at least shoot him a look that said exactly what that piece of my mind was thinking. But when I turned to glare in his direction, I saw something totally unexpected. That howling wasn’t coming from a man. It was coming from a dog—a very large dog upset about being left in a very small car.