The Elderly Proof is in the Old Pudding

I’ve been faced with the dilemma lately that I may be getting older.  To be completely clear on this, I don’t mean that I’m getting better.  Just older.  This can definitely be defined more definitively by the following observable facts:

1)      Electronic Devices Are Beginning to Cause Problems

2)      Simple Punctuation Now is Apparently Old-Fashioned

3)      Random Parts of My Body Now Fall Off

I’m sure if you’re reading that list, you want to RAPIDLY scan down to 3) to see what’s falling off.  But let’s all just stay together as a class and hit 1) and 2) first before proceeding to the final proof.

Electronic Devices Are Beginning to Cause Problems

Around my family I’m known as the IT guru.  Whether this be just a default because no one else has stepped up to the computer troubleshooting role or is eternally a question, but I seem to always be the one called upon to hoist the petard of Windows 8 or to give factoids on the latest tablets and niblets.

Lately, however, there has been a serious shift in the wind.  Some would say even that this shift in wind is predicting the obvious coming storm.  The storms name?  Hurricane Can’t Work the Remote.

I should say that I’m still the go-to.  I think.  But when you’re kids start yelling at you for not taking the quickest route in the DVR menu and you have to start making excuses like ‘Well…that’s just the way that I like to do it….’ then you know that a tropical tempest is approaching.  There’s a big wave coming off of Africa, if you know what I mean.  If you could see the glaze in my eyes when I’m watching a DVR’d show and accidentally hit the ‘LAST’ button, taking me to a random TV show while the DVR is still playing – you would know exactly what I’m talking about.  I realize it inside my head, and I’m sure my kids are just too polite (believe THAT or not) to say it out loud.

Simple Punctuation Now is Apparently Old-Fashioned

I’m back in 3^rd Grade.  Let’s all go back there now.  Visualize a gray-haired lady named Mrs. Adair.  She was everything that you’d expect a 3^rd Grade teacher to be.  Kind when she wanted to be…evil when she had to be.  And what she taught us about punctuation harkened back to Medieval England.  The finest writings of Shakespeare, Chaucer and Dave Barry.  She taught us how to write cursive so beautifully that it would make your pencil spin.  She also taught us that no matter what, be it nuclear war, the Third Ice Age, or an impending hurricane (see above) that we should ALWAYS put two spaces after a period.  How simple is that?   Real simple.  In fact, all iPods, Blackberries, and Raspberries currently automatically put a period in when you hit the space bar twice.  So at least at SOME point in time this was an accepted practice and proper languagical skills.

So what happened?  Why do my kids now laugh at me as soon as I add the second space?  Did something happen in the 90’s that I was not aware of?  Is it some horrible paper shortage that I’m not aware of?  I guess if you counted up all the spaces/characters that have been saved by not doing two spaces after a sentence it might save one oak tree in Upper Snotduggery, South Dakota, but I sure didn’t hear about it.  But yet here they are – grabbing the remote from me and going back through their papers and removing the extra spaces I put in.

And now…..

Random Parts of My Body Now Fall Off

Thanksgiving morning.  Chewing my traditional Thanksgiving slice of bacon.  What’s this?  A hard chunk?  It must be a piece of bone or something – I spit it out into my hand and put it in my pocket, so as not to make a scene.  I mean I don’t want to embarrass anyone over their sloppy cooking.  Then I start to think – what if it wasn’t a bone?  What if it was a piece of tooth from them or something???  How could they be so silly to have a tooth fall out and not even notice.

Please note that this was my actual line of thinking – at no time did I entertain the thought of it being anything other than someone else’s fault.  That’s how my brain works.

I finished the bacon and as my tongue did the traditional victory roll around the inside of my mouth – I’m stunned to find a sharp edge.  As the exploration continues, I come to the startling conclusion that the hard bone-like object nestling comfortably in my pocket was, in fact, an actual important part of my mouth.  It wasn’t just a filling falling out – it was half of the top of my tooth just apparently dropping out of my mouth quicker than using a join instead of a sub-query (see IT Nerd section above).  I’m VERY excited to report that this will undoubtedly result in yet another trip to the dentist.  That will undoubtedly result in yet another blog of how much I hate going to the dentist.

Obviously, the tooth falling out willy-nilly is the third strike of the proof needed for any jury to issue their conviction.  I’m getting older.  But obviously not wiser – since I still double-spaced each end of sentence in this blog.  And I will continue to do so until the paper industry forces me to do otherwise.

Getting older people of the world – UNITE!