Waiting for the beep…

Is it only me, or does everyone my age try to keep a constant vigil for signs of his or her own early-onset senility, or whatever it is called these days. I’m guessing that the word senile is no longer politically correct. I constantly wonder how long before I’m considered by others to be a doddering old fool. In my younger days, I always felt a twinge of pity for elderly people who were obviously beginning to slip in to a semi-sentient state. Now that it is I who is showing early signs of becoming doddering, I’ve picked up an entirely new perspective. I find it a constant source of amusement—which I would assume has become a growing font of consternation for the younger members of my family.
I now have to wear my keys around my neck. I had no choice. I work for a company where I need to swipe a plastic fob and punch in a code in order to have access to part of the building. If I don’t remember to bring it to the office—37.1 miles from my front door—I am required to go home and get them.. Knowing my proclivity for misplacing my keys, I took preventative measures and acquired a lanyard with my SecurID OTP key fob, my HID access key fob, the key to my ignition, the remote to lock and unlock my car door and the key to the front door. This memory-assist method is all held together by the fact that I have to drive my Trailblazer in order to get to work, making it impossible to leave home without the rest of my essentials. This should save me from ever adding 74.2 miles to my commute. The lanyard (if used without fail) will prevent me from placing my keys on the canned fruit shelf in Maynards when I’m choosing my Mandarin oranges.
There are some symptoms of doddering, however, that just can’t be fixed.
I’m reminded of the day earlier this year, when I was standing in Scott’s Electronics in Tyler, waiting patiently for the customer ahead of me to finish. A cell phone started ringing. Not, I thought, an unusual sound in a business that sells cell phones. After three rings, I noticed all three of the others in the room were looking at me. I smiled and made a “don’t worry, I’m in no hurry” sort of gesture. It wasn’t until after I left the building that I noticed the missed call beep notification coming from the front pocket of my pants. Apparently the sound of my phone ringing cannot travel out of my jeans, over my belly, and to my auditory canal with enough volume for me to notice. My retro-active amusement was slightly elevated by the fact that I remembered thinking when I was standing in Scott’s that someone else had my same ring…
There are other signs...like the day a couple of weeks ago when I went to work showing signs of doddering. It seems I started my morning by fastening button two in hole three, button three in hole four, button four…well, you get the picture. There is no beep notification for something like that.
Back in October I showed up one week early for my doctor’s appointment. I noticed it AFTER I had, earlier in the day, demanded that my blood test results be ready by 4:30 PM. At the check-in counter, Darla tried to soften the blow. “That’s OK, Mark, you aren’t the first patient to do something like that,” she said, carefully avoiding the word doddering.
I got a good laugh from that one.
On a regular basis, MY end of a conversation will sound something like this:
“I saw what’s-his-name today…the guy that lives on the old…um…oh man, what was the name of those people…you know, they live down the road from that guy with the comb-over we talked to in church Sunday morning…”
Most of this stuff is fairly harmless fun, of course. I do worry a bit about when I will start taking it to a new level, though.
I had a real scare in the front yard the other night. Kathy and I were bagging leaves and she made the comment, “not sure if you noticed, but you have a pile behind you…”
My heart leapt to my chest.
I was scared to look.
Turns out she was talking about leaves…but it took a few minutes for the fall color to drain out of my cheeks.
Sometime in the future, if you see me in my front yard with my shirt buttoned crooked, my front pocket beeping and something behind me on the lawn, do me a favor…just smile and wave.
You’ll know I’m having the time of my life.