Aging turns life into an obstacle course

David Sherman

Every table leg, chair leg, coffee table and standing lamp has become an artefact. Invisible flashing red warning lights. It’s no longer furniture, it’s a collection of land mines waiting to splinter your hip, crack your head, tear some soft tissue. Soft is not a misnomer. Once you hit the magic age – anytime after 65-70 -- soft tissue means exhausted tendons and ligaments, a brain that persists in asking, “Is it nap time yet?” and more chewing gum blended with Krazy Glue to let you limp from car to pharmacy to fetch more prescriptions.

“Take this before meals, take this after meals, take this in the middle of the night, don’t take this at all. It’ll kill you. Don’t know how it got in there. Sorry.

“And, if you take that, you’re going to go ‘kerplush,’”

“I don’t want to go ‘kerplush.’”

“No, you don’t,” and the pharmacist. He pushed it aside. We’ll save kerplush for another day. Once you’ve flown pas 65 and 70, kerplush waits impatiently.

Stairs you ran up and down, often plates of cake, chips, ice cream in hands, are now taken one at a time. Can’t spill the ice cream. Can’t spill yourself. Stairs can be your friend or an IED, facilitating spinal and cranial destruction.

Best way to save yourself is to engage in routine banister verification. Put all your weight on the banister and try and pull it out of the wall as you leap up and down. If you wake in the back of an ambulance, you probably need a better banister.

At a certain age, life is not to be lived and relished, but protected, nurtured, studied and wrapped in air-tight plastic like a Jean Beliveau trading card. Newspapers, read only by people who used to deliver them, have two sections – Trump and how to put off your last ride in the back of a hearse.

Every story for those with advanced arthritis/bursitis/ osteoporosis warns you about the dangers of sex. Most healthy adults have had a few decades to work it out -- the great, the good, the bad and the ugly -­- so lessons seem a tad belated. But, then again, not too long ago, the harmony of a lover and the horizontal -- floor, table, bed, washing machine, wall (vertical works, too, with sharpened fingernails, as long as there are no electric sockets) -- would assist in pleasure without an Ibuprophen, diazepam and ice-pack kicker.

First snow always knocks my socks off. Love to take the shovel and dig the gloves out of the bottom of some box or other and shovel. Worked out a system for the days the wet, heavy snow weighs like a stack of soaked phone books. When they weighed 10 pounds. Another blast from the past.

I shovelled those bricks of snow peacefully. No rush. Six stairs at a time. Stars in the sky. Cool air clearing the brain. Slow and easy. Worked well. Felt good, arms just tired enough, no chest pains. Felt like a real man.

Yes, the exercise kept my arms buff, my back only slightly inflamed, tempered with my shoulders and neck sparring over heating pad, ice pack and a cocktail of pharmaceuticals. Shovelling was great especially if chased by a few ounces of Bushmill's.

Alone in the elements. Your breath in benign clouds, your fingers tingling, your feet stinging, threatening to let you and your shovel slide down the stairs. Yes, life in the wild of winter.

Despite the heavenly choir of scraping shovels, the popping open of the whisky bottle and the silent harmonies of insulted muscles, life in the orbit of a propane fireplace beats communing with a foot of snow and an arsenal of shovels. This year we decided to share the pleasure and hired someone to shovel the stairs and walk.

Clearing is not sufficient. Salt or sand a must because melt turns the slivers of snow left behind into corrugated ice waiting to snap your neck and inflame your back. And hips. And shoulder. Knees. Any damn things it wants.

A lovely friend who is barely vulnerable – she’s still in the impregnable 60s – childishly insisted on shovelling snow after a visit. A stubborn sort, she wanted nothing more than to shovel stairs after dinner and on her way home. She proudly cleaned the stairs, said her good nights and walked down the driveway. She made it to the street after only two somersaults, a couple of back flips and then bobsledding into the street. Without the bobsled. She limped home waving. Lawsuit pending.

It is said at 65, some say 70, living turns into surviving and even a few political stories from our friends to the south get stalled so CNN and the New York Times can tell us how to live longer. Tofu, mung beans and 72-hour rise sourdough made with baker’s tears, broken finger tips and a sprinkling of grains is all you need to survive the present. It helps if you completely avoid CNN and the Times, too. Gotta think about your blood pressure.

And our clothing is evolving. My boots have built in cleats with a plastic fob to open and close the spikes. Need the cleats to get to the car but once in the car they tend to hold on to the petals. What’s a puncture or two to a gas or brake pedal?

Quite a bit, it turns out, if you’re trying to hit the brake but the cleats on your right foot have perforated the gas pedal.

Of course, store managers and owners resent customers turning their floors to pin cushions. Best walk softly and spend extravagantly and avoid the habit of one of baseball’s greatest, Ty Cobb, not to be confused with the lawyer of the same name who worked for Trump.

Baseball’s Cobb played for 23 years, had a lifetime batting average of 366 and a reputation that may have coined the phrase “a real son of a bitch.” He also had a penchant for taking a file to his cleats and sharpening them on the dugout steps before a game so opposing infielders knew multiple puncture wounds were coming. This is not recommended fir grocery r hardware shopping.

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Just walk softly, hold onto your shopping cart and prepare yourself for when your snow crampons hit a puddle left behind by a selfish soul with snow-encrusted boots.

This turns the grocery aisle into a bobsled run without the bobsled.

Bu there’s more magic to protect our decaying bodies from persistent elements. They’ve provided us with heated, battery-operated electric clothes – gloves, boots, and coats. This is great for the over-70 crowd. We remain looking indifferent during winter’s worst, and as long as you avoid driving into a lake and shorting out your shorts, there’s only a small chance your winter wardrobe could immolate you.

Yes, there are many ways to keep a true thanatophobic from taping down his carpets and 1,000 charging cords that makes our world go ‘round or exchanging your staircases for elevators.

Put on the pads, helmet – hockey equipment is the best. It protects everything but your neck. Suitably dipped in protective plastic, you can then stretch out on the sofa and watch a hockey game.

The only thing that will hurt is the commercials.