The Race to the End
I’ve realized that I fallen victim to ‘Senior Speak.’
I don’t know how it happened. I am a hip dude. Educated. Sophisticated.
Fluid in at least 1.3 languages.
So, why is it that when I get together with other adults, all we ever do is talk about our ailments and medications.
If you’re over 60, you’ve probably had a conversation like this over lunch.
“Hey, Joe. How’s it going”
“Pretty good, Bob, except I got this really nasty case of gout.’
“Ooo.. have you tried chewing on eucalyptus root. It cleared mine right up.”
“Thanks. How’s your knee? Still giving you trouble?”
“Oh yeah. I can barely walk to the bathroom at night. It don’t matter though. Prostate so swollen, I can’t pee.”
“Me and you both. So, how’s the chicken?”
And on and on and on…
The same thing happened to me at a business luncheon this week. After a few pleasantries, our table broke out into a stimulating conversation about triglycerides. And that was followed by a deep discussion about chronic constipation and lower back pain and then recommendations of specific medications from some of the sicker fellows in our group.
We didn’t talk about sports. Fast cars. The weather. Not even women.
Nope. We spent the entire time sharing our various battles with rising cholesterol, inflamed bowels and heart palpitations and the handfuls of capsules we choke down every day to keep our wives from collecting our life insurance and spending it on the pool boy.
What’s next?
Rousing discussions about the best adult diapers and how much fiber we have to drink each day in order just to poop?
Certainly, I have more in common with these men than the fact that we’re all taking statins and praying that our prostates just stay where they are and mind their own business.
So, I tried to think of some conversation starters that would steer us away from discussing our fallen arches and sudden abundance of nose hair. But try as I my, every path led us right back to talking about our ailments.
Here’s an example:
Me: Hey, guys… what do you think about that earthquake in Morraco… bad, huh?
This quickly led to a discussion about a rumbling sound coming from one guy’s lower abdomen and whether he should see a doctor.
We all agreed not until he went blind in one eye. No need to be hysterical.
No matter what kind of conversation I would try to start, somehow it would always devolve right back to the one thing our group really want to talk about but was just afraid to say out loud: which one of us is going to go first.
It’s a race. A race to the be last.
Me: So, I’ve been having a hard time getting the tailgate down on my truck… anybody know how to fix that?
Surely, we could talk about trucks without making it about our various pains and illnesses. I mean, this is the South where men love their trucks more than their kids.
Nope. In less than a minute, one guy was regaling us with the tale of how he tore his rotator cuff pulling on his truck’s tailgate. Another said he had tennis elbow. And a third claimed that was nothing. He couldn’t even bend his elbow, which was clearly a lie because his ‘bad arm’ didn’t seem to prevent him from to stuffing his face with peach cobbler.
It’s like falling into quicksand. The more you fight it, the faster you sink.
So, I give up. If this is the only thing people talk about at my age, then I guess I’ll have to just join in with my fellow geriatrics and embrace ‘Senior Speak.’
If people want to have long conversations about gastric reflux or the newest pill for keeping their heart beating in some semblance of a rhythm, then I can jump right in there and spill my guts and even pass around stool samples.
And since my mind will surely be going soon and I may not be able to answer the probing questions my colleagues and friends may ask in the future, I might as well just go ahead and print up cards with all my critical old folk information on it so I can proactively hand them out to everyone I meet.
Nothing elaborate. Just my name, address, social security number, eye color, shoe size, blood type, everywhere I claim I hurt, everywhere I really hurt, all the prescriptions I take and all the other herbal, natural, raw, whole-food, roots, moon crystals and other nutty stuff I take but don’t tell people about.
We could all do it and create our own line of old people trading cards then we could trade them with other old folks and would never have need to talk to each while enjoying the all you can eat buffet at the casino.
But until then, I’ll be ready just in case we meet on the street somewhere.
We can talk about my arthritis, my bad knees, my neck that hurts when I look left, my bad back, my bad eyesight, my high blood pressure, the pill I take for my high blood pressure, the pill I take for my cholesterol, the pill I take for my back and all the pills that I take that I have no idea what they do and when I ask my doctor, he barks, “If you want to live, take them!”
And you can tell me about your gout, bad gallbladder that needs to come out, your feet that hurt because you can’t find the right orthopedic insoles, those pills that make you dizzy and the color of your mucus.
You know, just normal conversation.
