The Age of Age

It seems that I’ve finally hit that age where one of the first topics that comes up when meeting up with old friends is ailments.  You know the conversation; it goes something like this:

“How are you doing?”

“Oh, pretty good.  My back is driving me crazy and my knee needs surgery but pretty good overall.  You?”

“Not too bad.  I’ve had some weird ‘bouts of vertigo and stomach issues but not too bad.”

“Ah…good to hear!”

Now, this is a fairly modest example in reality.  The real conversation tends to lean more towards ailments like gastrointestinal issues, heart, fatigue, prostate, you name it…all the sorts of things that don’t exactly make attractive or polite dinner conversation.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that no one really wants to hear about your diarrhea problems while eating green curry at a Thai restaurant.

There also seems to be a bit of stigma around bringing up constipation issues while eating chocolate ice cream, albeit understandably so.  But then again, how does someone answer the question of “how are you doing” in any other fashion?  I’m in that age now that most of how I’m doing somehow revolves around which ailment I’m currently battling and there’s unfortunately rarely a time when I don’t have less than 2 concurrent problems happening simultaneously.  Judging from most of my friends, I’m clearly not alone in this category.

I guess that’s just aging, right?  Quite possibly.  I’ll openly admit that it’s not my favorite thing in the world and if given the choice I’d probably choose eternal youth.  Aging so far has come with so many various surprises, things that they don’t forewarn you about in school and such, and most of them come as a semi vicious shock.  For example, it seems like it was almost literally on my 40^th birthday that various things started happening.  40 seems to come with a variety of special birthday “presents”:  first, you may start to not see quite as sharply as before.  Next, you begin having issues focusing and start spending more time staring blankly at words and paragraphs, especially on computer screens.  Then, your memory starts to also fade a bit.  You might also experience some trouble sleeping or possibly trouble peeing.  And, if that’s not enough for you to already handle, you’re also suddenly thrown into the pool for the risk of serious diseases such as diabetes, cancer, heart attack, and stroke.  What more could you ask for, right?

One of the things that’s always puzzled me, though, is the weird silent internal body chemistry command that suddenly tells your various body hairs to start growing at an alarming rate and simply never stop.  I really don’t get it whatsoever.  What is this underhanded event that occurs that makes, say, an eyebrow hair suddenly not remember when to stop growing?  For 40+ years, it had no issue knowing it’s set growth limitation but, all of a sudden, it’s like your eyebrow hairs have lost their memory as well.  This is no joke.  It begins by these strange tickling sensations that you receive, like as if someone was pestering you with a feather duster.  In annoyance, you look at yourself in the bathroom mirror and notice that it’s actually you who is in fact tickling yourself, or more specifically an eyebrow hair has somehow grown so long as to tickle the earlobe on the opposite side of your head.  I mean, it’s insane!  The ear and nose hair is even worse.  I swear that I could probably grow one simple ear hair out and, by zig-zagging it across my head, I’d probably give off the illusion of a full head of hair.  I’ve pulled nose hairs out of my nose that I thought were cat hairs…from a long haired cat, no less.  The best part is that those same nose hairs grow so long that they tickle your nostril endlessly every time you breathe.  You end up looking like a lunatic frantically trying to find the offending hair.  People all around you think that you’re incessantly picking your nose but in truth you’re just madly searching for the offending hair.  Again, fun stuff.

Surgeries also used to seem more like unfortunate accident repair in the past.  These days, surgeries are more akin to tune-ups on your automobile except that your tires seem to be guaranteed only for about 1,500 miles rather than the usual 30-40k.  Doctor’s visits also often end with a shrug of the shoulders rather than any definitive solution.  More often than not, the diagnosis is something along the lines of “learn to live with it”.  Sigh.

One incredibly positive thing about aging is that I usually can’t remember to stay mad at anyone that long and so happiness seems to flow a lot easier than in the past.  It’s amazing how if you can’t remember negativity how much happier you can be in life!  So, I guess it’s not all bad after all.

Aging is certainly not for the weak of heart (pun intended).  Then again, considering the alternative, well…

I Have an Emergency!

I was recently in Target and thought I might quickly become a witness to the latest YouTube viral sensation of a customer throwing a tantrum.  Frankly, for a moment, at least, I kind of thought that a fist fight might break out between two ladies and wasn’t sure if I should be excited by the prospect or completely terrified.

It kind of happened like this…  The checkout lines in Target were particularly long on this day, especially since this very Target is one of the only low traffic Target’s I’ve experienced in North County.  I believe the time was around noon on a weekday and so most shoppers were probably there over their lunch hour, just like myself, trying to squeeze a few errands in before getting back to the office.

After waiting a short amount of time, I was eventually next in line after a woman that I’d guess was around my age or slightly older.  She was well put together, with lots of jewelry and accessories, and clearly made a decent amount of money in whatever it was that she did for a living.  I would say that she gave off the vibe of possibly being a bit snooty but not altogether unapproachable, if that helps any.  Just as she was about to be rung up at the register, another lady pushing a shopping cart containing a large child car seat frantically rolled up and started saying rather loudly, “I have an emergency…I have an emergency…”  She wheeled her cart behind our line, thus to the back of the clerk who was ringing up our purchases, and more or less tapped the young girl on the shoulder.  “I have an emergency…can I be rung up??!”

The young female Target employee who was probably all of about 16 years old looked rather confused on what to do and simply managed to mumble an “…uhhhh….”  After a couple seconds, she sheepishly said, “Well, the line is on this side,” pointing to where we, the woman in front of me and myself, were standing.  “You’d have to pay on this side,” meaning that the card reader wasn’t movable.

Upon hearing this, the frantic lady looked mildly put out but started wheeling her cart around the back of the lane, basically where you’d pick up your purchases after paying for them.  She abruptly stopped when the lady in front of me didn’t move away from the card reader and instead looked terribly confused, eventually asking, “Um…what’s going on?”

The frantic lady stated, “I guess I need to ring this up over here,” pointing to the side with the card reader.

The lady in front of me had a look of both confusion and complete annoyance.  She looked around briefly and pointed towards the back of the line saying, “The line starts back there.”

The frantic lady now looked desperate.  “But I have an emergency!  I need to go!”

The lady in front of me looked at the Target employee who simply shrugged her shoulders, in an effort to more or less insinuate ‘it’s your choice if you want to let her in’.  The lady in front of me simply stood for quite a few seconds, pondering the whole situation and clearly was taken aback by the nerve of the frantic lady.  In the meantime, the frantic lady again stated, “Please??!  I have an emergency?  Please???!!!”

We all stood with eyes glued on the lady in front of me, patiently waiting for the verdict.  Like a judge in a murder trial, silence hung in the room while the lady looked back and forth, pondering, considering, etc.  It then became evident that she was administering the dreaded thumbs down response.  She turned back to the frantic lady and repeated once again with more attitude this time, “The line begins over there.”

It was right about now that I thought a fist fight would break out.  The frantic lady was completely in shock by this response.  “Oh my god!!  I have an EMERGENCY!  I can’t believe it!” she said, all the while shaking her head in disbelief.  “The NERVE of some people!  Oh my god!!!!”  She then began pushing her cart away and yelled out, “Guess I’ll just have to go to self check out then!”

The lady in front of me simply smirked in righteousness and mumbled quietly towards the Target clerk and the rest of us in line, “…well, I only have so much time on my lunch hour too...”  It was apparent that she didn’t buy the “emergency” story whatsoever and felt that she had really “shown her”.

It was at this point that the lady behind me in line chimed in, “Some people.  You know, she was acting really weird when she came in, too.”  By the time my purchases were getting rung up, I said to the young female Target clerk, “Well, personally, I think I would have just let her ring the thing up,” in which the Target clerk gently smiled and agreed.

I can’t deny that I really find this whole event rather intriguing.  What I find so interesting about this situation is that apparently very few people can even believe that the lady could actually have an emergency.  I mean, this is how far we’ve come in our society with crying wolf, preying on other’s good will, and so on.  We’re apparently so used to the concept of ‘fake’ everything at this point that we can’t even handle the concept of letting someone cut in front of us in a Target line, lest we feel like a real sucker.  It’s quite sad, no?  Then again, how does one tell the true “emergencies” from the fakers, and better yet who’s to judge whose emergency is “emergency” enough to cut in a shopping line?  Just like with people who stand on street corners with signs that say that they’re homeless and need help, we apparently as a society no longer believe that anyone is genuine in their cry for help, and we simply assume that everyone around us is running some sort of a scam.  I mean, I don’t know whether the lady had a true emergency or not.  How could I, right?  Still, she wasn’t asking for money or anything…she was simply asking to cut in a shopping line, and that doesn’t really involve anything from anyone except perhaps an additional wait of about 2 minutes, considering she just had one item to ring up.  I guess we apparently as a society feel like that’s not worth the risk.  It’s just interesting…and very sad at the same time.  It basically sounds to me like if you’re ever in need of real help from a stranger, the best thing you can do is simply stay quiet and suck it up.  Perhaps that’s what our society has come to, and if so, well, that’s pretty depressing.

I’m not really suggesting that the woman in front of me in line did anything wrong for who knows what the real story is behind the frantic lady’s actions.  I’m simply pointing out the fact that she automatically assumed it was a scam, and weirder yet is the lady behind me who felt the need to point out that the frantic lady was acting strange on the way into Target and automatically tied that in to the scam mentality.  For me personally, I would have tied it the other way around.

Still, what kind of legitimate emergency involves the purchase of an infant car seat?  If someone was in that desperate need of help, wouldn’t you just leave the car seat behind and run out of Target in order to get to your destination as quickly as possible?  And why not just use self check out in the first place?  These are all very valid questions.  I guess there’s a small chance that she might need the car seat for the emergency but that seems slightly odd, no?  Again, damn good questions and who knows what the answers are.

In the end, after paying for my purchases, I pushed my cart out of the exit of Target and nearly got run over by a car that zipped past me going at least about 40+ miles per hour in what would normally be a 10 mph zone.  As the car whizzed by me and I stood there flabbergasted by the near miss, I noticed that the driver was indeed the frantic lady.  Perhaps it was an emergency after all?  Who knows.  I guess at least I didn’t end up BEING the emergency, with getting run over and needing to be rushed to the hospital for my injuries.  If that did happen, I think we can already bet that someone would have thought it was a scam.

Life in North County

And so, yes, I've moved, if you haven't heard and/or already figured that out.  It was quite a task, to say the least, but I think moving across country almost always is.  It's certainly a lot more daunting of a task if you move yourself but then again it's also considerably cheaper.  In hindset, just my 2 cents, of course, but driving the Penske moving truck was probably the easiest part of the whole process so I personally see little reason to pay someone else a large sum of money to do this fairly straight forward task.  Ah, but that's me.

The drive out in my car over New Years was pretty straight forward except for a possible weirdo that was following me for quite some time that really put me on my guard.  Guess where he was from?  Yep, Minnesota, per his license plate.  He even darted off of the freeway at the last second, nearly hitting the median, when he saw that I put my blinker on to exit the freeway and then proceeded to follow me to the gas station.  Not long after that, he struck up a goofy brief conversation at the pump and then proceeded to follow me into the bathroom.  I did my best to hurry out of the bathroom and gas station without looking too obvious but he once again followed me back to the pumps and then onto the freeway.  I've seen one too many movies like "Zodiac" that simply told me to keep my guard up at all costs, of which I did and then did my best to distance myself from him by slowing down and sticking behind another traveller.  He may have just been an overly zealous Minnesotan hoping to ride alongside another former Minnesotan but you just can't be too careful these days.

That was the weirdest thing that happened.  On the lighter side, I guess I will not deny that I let out quite a big cheer when I passed into the Iowa State border from Minnesota.  Iowa isn't really much more to look at but at least it was progress in the right direction, in my head at least.  It really wasn't until I reached Colorado that I truly started breathing a sigh of relief, one that was about 10 years in the making.  Leaving the midwest behind me was definitely a reason to celebrate as far as I was concerned, and no matter what the future holds, I really hope to not have to ever drive again with the midwest being my final destination.

Oddly, Minnesota, in it's usual "Minnesota" sort of way, is one of the few states I've ever encountered that not only has a "Welcome to Minnesota" sign but also has a "Thanks for visiting Minnesota" sign just slightly before the "Welcome to Iowa" sign.  It might just be my personal bias but this seems to have that typical Minnesota "we're the best at everything" sort of mentality, as if to say, "Um, you're about to leave the wonderful state of Minnesota.  Are you sure you want to do that?  Huh?  Huh??  And, why would you ever want to leave?!  Are you crazy?!!"  Yeah, that's pretty much how I view Minnesota in a nutshell.  The very amusing part is that Minnesotans basically look down on Iowa as a worthless flyover zone; in passing into the state of Iowa, it looks to me like, well, Minnesota, just without the attitude.  'Nuff said on that topic.

I also had my first ever emergency whizz off the freeway.  I was patiently waiting to get to a gas station and over about a 20 minute time frame, when no stations were in sight, it became literally painfully obvious that I wasn't going to make it.  I seriously waited until I realized that I was about to pee my pants that I finally pulled over and in broad daylight watered the desert shrubery.  The next gas station of course ended up being only 10 minutes away but I seriously would have never made it.

And so, how is life in North County?  Yep, spoken like a native!  I quickly learned that when you say "San Diego" people usually mean county, not city.  So, we're all San Diegoan's here, apparently, since everything south of Camp Pendleton is in San Diego county.  To differentiate, we're in the northern part of the county and so...  I'm sure you get the drift.

I'd say life is good in North County.  It's amazing how quickly you forget about snow, weather, etc., not to mention, well, Minnesota.  I've done everything I can to shed pretty much any tie I might have had with my former state, even going so far as to instruct new acquaintances to never say that I'm "from" Minnesota...it was just a mistake, 'er, I mean, place that I lived for awhile.  In fact, it's best that we simply don't talk about it at all.

North County is so far pretty much as I had imagined it, though.  It's not completely unlike the look of Phoenix, my former former place of residency, coupled with the look and feel of south Orange County, ala San Clemente.  So far, I have no mega complaints except for things like I wish the roads were a bit smoother and traffic wasn't quite as heavy as it can be at times.  I am certainly enjoying being able to eat decent food again, though, and I can't say enough how joyous it is to have chips and guacamole once again on a regular basis, even if it does give me mega heart burn and will probably eventually be the death of me.

Apart from that, I'm just settling in to my surroundings, getting things put away (ah, the endless unpacking), and so on.  Life in North County is so far so good.  Now, ask me in 6 months and we'll see how it's goin' ;)