The I Can Almost Reach It Years

Here’s a thought that a younger reader might find amusing. Yes, even the young have heard of the Golden Years. Well, I’m here to tell them and to confirm to all my fellow geriatrics that even though we all know that this time in our lives beats the alternative, that there isn’t necessarily gold in “them thar hills.”

Now rather than dwell on the most serious areas of this time frame---I will try to bring you the lighter side. Firstly, a more appropriate name for old age might be called the I can barely reach it years. 

And to reinforce my point just hop on the internet and you will find the marketplace where millions of Grabbers are sold annually.  Yes, Amazon even features an award winning grabber, a clever little device that reaches out and with a gentle grip on the handle plucks everything from the mail you dropped at the post office to those car keys on the floor that you can barely reach. May we stop for a second or two to say a congratulatory prayer for the device’s inventor, this wonderful gizmo that, perhaps aside from the wheel chair and crutch are the old timer’s best friend?

My problem is that unless my wife shouts (I’ll get to deafness in a few minutes) “Don’t forget your grabber!” I find myself in “I can’t quite reach it” situations lunging at the floorboard of the car trying desperately to grab my car keys.

So, even if you haven’t entered the I Can’t Quite Reach It Years, hop on the net and get yourself a grabber it will help you make a dry run for the days when this item will be as necessary as the abutment teeth that anchor that $6,000 bridge that allows you to gum semi-solid food. 

Now, let’s spend a few minutes with hearing. Unless you have spent time as a roady for a rock band, or made a career operating a pile driver on construction sites your hearing issues are probably due to, in a word or two, being old! Although I wouldn’t recommend it, I will admit that unless you want to drop several thousand on ear aid buttons then this inability to hear what your wife or husband of say, 55 years, thought he or she heard can be pretty entertaining.

I’ll refer to the day I rolled in with a huge bag filled with fried rice and chicken chow Mein, enough to feed the crew that built the great wall, and said, “You know Chinese is really cheap!”

Boy, she was right on me and said, why would you say that a friend like Tiny is cheap!”

Tiny is not tiny; he is not cheap and what I said was Chinese is cheap!”

I’m sure I’ll readdress this I can’t quite reach it stage in more detail in later blogs but before I go, I think the social aspect of these years deserves a mention.

I refer to my former boss who during his retirement talk shared a thought that I’ve tried to live by. He said, “You know during my retirement I’m going to keep this in mind, “Never get a haircut and mail a letter on the same day!” 

And the fact is during these I can almost reach it years things can get a bit lonely. That’s why when  the phone rings my wife and I go walker vs walker heading to the phone shouting, “It’s CVS with the new prescriptions, I’ll get it!”

Oh, admittedly there is a lovely young lady who works the pharmacy counter who my wife accuses me of flirting with.  Case-in-point. On the last call as I was pulling out of the driveway, hell bent for the CVS, my wife appeared in my rearview mirror waving my favorite You Can Almost Reach It aid, shouting what to me sounded like, “Don’t forget to GRAB HER!”