Getting old sucks

By DARREN HANDSCHUH
It’s not just the aches and pains that let me know I am getting older.
There are many other signs that I am no longer the young lad I once was. Some of them are subtle and some of them are like getting slapped in the face with a six-pound trout.
One of the subtle ones is the hair loss. Big deal, I started losing my hair when I was around 20. I decided I would go bald gracefully and not enter into the realm of the comb over and ‘fool’ people into believing I still had a full head of flowing locks.
C’mon guys, if your hair is falling out faster than sweat off a fat guy in a sauna, accept it.
It’s not so bad.
Just think of all the time you will save by not having to comb your hair. I spend more time vacuuming my hair off the floor than I do combing it.
I also haven’t used conditioner in many years, saving several dollars in the process. That’s money I can spend on other things, like hats.
As Father Time continues to slap me around, I have noticed my knees don’t work as well as they used to and several items of clothing have mysteriously shrunk over the past few years.
For some reason they all seem to shrink around the waistline.
Take a pair of pants for example. The legs remain the same length, so it is some weird horizontal shrinkage as opposed to a unilateral and vertical shrinkage. Go figure.
There are several nagging injuries that remind me of an energetic youth, but it was a conversation with my 15-year-old niece that cut me to the aged quick.
We were enjoying a coffee at a local brew house when my niece said she could smell something odd.
Try as I might, all I could smell was coffee, but she insisted a strange aroma was hovering in the air.
I knew immediately she had a bionic nose. My wife has the same thing, as does her father, so it seems the nose has been passed to another generation.
My wife has a sense of smell so acute she can pick out a bug fart in a hurricane. Maybe not a fruit fly, but a house fly or larger.
Most people in my age group will remember Steve Austin - the bionic man. A dude with two mechanical legs, a mechanical arm and mechanical eye who could run so fast that time slowed to the point where it looked like he was barely moving.
I looked at my niece and said, “You have a bionic nose.”
A blank look crossed her face and she replied, “What’s a bionic nose.”
Slap. Ouch.
“You know. The Six Million Dollar Man. Battled Sasquatch, fought evil henchmen, ran so fast he looked slow.”She gave me the same blank stare like I had been sniffing too much muscle liniment.
I took a moment to try and explain the mechanical marvel of my youth. I even told her about the bionic woman, the bionic dog and I am not positive, but I think there was a bionic hamster towards the end of the series as the producers grasped for ratings.
Same blank stare.
“You have a hyper spastic nose that can smell farther than most people can see.”
That she understood, but she did not see the point of my rant and had little interest in developing her gift for the good of mankind.
We finished our coffee and I hobbled home wondering if I should stop and buy a walker on the way.
My niece is now married and is growing older herself.
I rest assured knowing someday she will have a similar conversation with her daughter or niece.
Payback, how sweet it is.
shoenews@shaw.ca