The way we were

This post is brought to you by: People who complain that grocery store music is too brash, people I work with, and news articles illustrating the poorly-researched decline of the American Family. Much like my hate for the overused phrase 'in these economic times', people who use phrases like 'The good old days' or get all glossy-eyed over 'the way things used to be" erk the hell out of me. I've been paying close attention to these statements, and I've discovered some interesting correlations.

First of all, these statements are never made by anyone except old people, unless irony is implied. Secondly, these statements serve a duel purpose for these good-old-day-sayers: They are allowed to be both negative and condescending at the same time: Two birds, one overly simplistic and nostalgic stone.

They complain that music 'just isn't the same' as it used to be. Which is true to an extent, but the logic of the argument is flawed: 'New music isn't music, it's just noise.' --What music isn't noise? Where are you listening to this olde-tyme silent music?

A few weeks ago my co-workers were complaining that there was no where to get a good loaf of bread in town. One of the older women stated that the old bakery never should have closed. 'Everyone went there.' That struck a nerve with me, because my family owned that bakery, and it closed because no one went there. Maybe your neighborhood bakery that you look back on with such nostalgia would still been there if you hadn't decided Wal*mart's bread was 'just as good'. In other words: you ruined your own good old days, you have no one to blame but yourself. Its the same reason you can't find clothes at Wal*Mart that fit like they clothes you used to get at the old department store downtown (more on that later). Which reminds me of another common thread of all this, never disagree. They're wrong, you know it, but they're old, isn't have punishment enough? Just let them think they're right.

Back to clothes. They're not made like they used to be. Well, neither are you, hypothetical old person. Thirty years ago, you could walk into any old store and put on any old thing. Well, you gained thirty pounds, and now you're the old thing. But sure, blame China. Its the same reason make-up isn't made the way it used to be. You're thirty years older, make-up hasn't changed, you just need a hell of a lot more of it. And your hair isn't brassy and fragile because you shampoo is watered down, its because you hair is just brassy and fragile. That's it. Your dollar store Suave coconut conditioner can't compete with that.

Trend Alert!

I apparently watch television that is targeting an audience two generations older than myself. All of the commercials are geared toward improving my mobility, buying life insurance without having to have a physical exam, reverse mortgages, and managing my sore bones, loose dentures, and forever ailing health. After watching hours of these commercials, I've collected a few marketing trends that I will use to make the elderly bend to my will-- which will be a real task, seeing as they don't bend very well. Because I plan to use my new communication skills to pacify old, grouchy patients, I'm going to try to write off my cable bill as a business expense.




Old people LOVE American flags, its a proven fact. One of the easiest ways to get an old person's attention is to put slap an American flag on your logo. It reminds them where they are: America.

Nobody likes to be frustrated, but no one hates being frustrated more than old people do. Some of the industries best reenactors have jobs on commercials illustrating old people's biggest fears: a seemingly able-bodied woman struggles to open a pickle jar; you're at your daughter's wedding and your dentures just won't stay put. Your grandchildren are picking on you about your inability to use a cell phone. Your tiny arthritic hands can't zip your tiny zippers. And worst of all-- you can't hear the television. How are you going to know what to be insecure about if you can't hear the tv?!

In conclusion, to motivate the Greatest Generation, you only need two tools: Flags and Fear. Just make sure you speak in a clear, loud voice.

Now This is a story all about how... wait a minute.

I need to listen to myself more often. How many times have I said that a person should never ever ask how someone is doing, but yet I still do.

I shouldn't ask people how they're doing because I don't actually care. And even if I did care, which I don't, I don't have time to listen. Today I stupidly asked an 89-year-old man how he was doing, and he said, and I will do my best to relay his exactly ramble:

"Well," he started, "I never would have thought it. Never would have thought I would live this long. I'm almost ninety, you know. Everybody asks me. Asks me how I did it." Now, it took the man almost two full minutes to drag that terrible use of the English language out of his mouth-- damn slow-talking old people-- and so at that point I tried to interject some sort of failed segway, asking 'what is the lowest line on the chart', but to no avail. He'd started, and darn it, he was doing to finish. "Well," he continued, "I stayed away from the Whiskey. Never touched the stuff. Other guys did, but not me. I was born in Colorado you know, and I remember, I remember being a boy. 11 years old. And I took a raft and I across the Mississippi river... " ... At this point I realized that his story was starting to sound suspiciously like the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, simultaneously I realized that this man was balls crazy with oldness. He came into the office wearing an over-sized crazy horse belt buckle, and one of those southwestern style turquoise bolo neckties, and a confederate hat that said 'Bush Gardens' in big gold letters across the front-- but only then did it dawn on me he was not in complete control of his mental facilities. So, I put drop in his eyes and that shut him right up.

If I ever get old enough to weave elementary texts into my own history, I hope I end up a Faulkner novel. But I probably wont. I'll probably be the Catcher in the Rye or something. I imagine by the time I'm 89, there will be an actual diagnosis called 'emo dementia', where not only do you have bouts of forgetfulness, but because of years of listening to crying, whining music, patients also experience deep depressions brought on by previous girlfriends they never actually had.

Highlights of my work week...

In honor of Friday, its time I look back on my week. Here are just a few of the highlights:

I tripped over some old lady's artificial leg, multiple times.

A five year old girl belched in my face.

I had the same dream every night that I was being chased. Not directly work related... but I feel it contributed to the overall climate.

I yelled at a ten year old. While she was already crying. In my defense, I was yelling at her to stop crying.

I suggested to a man in a wheel chair he should go 'run away' someplace.

Someone brought reese's easter eggs into the office. I fucking love reese's easter eggs.

My co-worker cut her hand on a bloody scalpel, we're pretty sure she doesn't have some terrible old man disease now, but we're keeping a close eye on her, just in case.

A patient told my co-workers he saw a picture of me on facebook and he wanted to know how I could 'bend that way'. I'm still trying to decide which was worse: my 50-something co-worker jumping on facebook so she could find it, or me doing that.


I had to yank an overweight patient out of the waiting room chair she was wedged in. I have to do that nearly every day, but it never gets old.

Wake-up Call

Every once in a while, I am enlisted to call patients to remind them of their appointments. Now, there are probably a hundred things about this specific job that I could rant about, but today I will focus exclusively on the 96 year old ladies.

First of all, I'm calling to confirm your appointment. And you're old, so you don't remember. But this is a common trait among the over 65, so I'm prepared to not just remind them of an appointment, but the who they're seeing, what for, where we are located, and why they need to be seen. So, I dial the number, and its ringing, and its ringing, and... and they don't answer. And of course they don't have an answering machine, because that would be crazy. But, having called, and failed, I'm left thinking, Betty, where the hell are you? Its quarter to ten on a Tuesday morning, you've been awake for five hours already, and you're 96 years old. Where could you possibly be? Are you dead? because really, that's the only logically explanation here.

Old people make me so angry. Except sometimes they are dead. Which is a bummer.

Being old is effortless

While I was at work this week I watched a nice old lady in her eighties struggle to hold one of our instruments with her elderly, mangled, hook-of-a-hand, and as I looked deep into her increasingly frustrated face, I realized that arthritis is really just early-onset riga mortus. And for this woman, it wasn't all that early. And then I took the instrument away, and told her to forget about it. Which I'm sure she did, almost immediately.

Thanks for the input

Today was "Tell the tech how to do her job" day at the office. If I had known in advance, I would have called in sick.

An old man says to me, "I think you're getting entirely too close to my eye. But I'm not trying to tell you how to do you job..." Only... I think he was trying to tell me how to do my job.

See, and the thing that really rings me out is that I was testing the pressure inside of his eye, which requires me to touch his eye. So yes. I was extremely close to his eye. So close that I was touching it. But you've got to touch it to test the pressure. So shut up.