Romantic Warrior's blog: "Getting Older"

Getting Older

I'm getting older now. I can tell. I can feel it, though it's different from what I thought it'd be. It's just not what I thought. There's a lot said and written about this aspect of life, some of which is true and some not. Some is humorous, and some not. I wish I had recorded it all, to do a sort of comparison as to what's been said, and what I know. It is because I didn't that I'll have to give you the “quick and long” story. Such as things always seem to be.

            To begin with … I don't know where to begin. It seemed to sneak up on me, as so many told me it would. One day I was young, and then another I'm not. It's not that I'm so old that I can't do for myself. Hell, I still can and often do, ride a bicycle 600-1000 miles a month. It's just... well... I mean at 50, I'm not really old, not in the physical sense anyway, however I'm older than most my bosses. Certainly more than my fellow associates, but that's not what I've noticed that led to the realization that I'm getting older. It's not just one certain thing. It's much more subtle than that. It's an accumulation of many things.

Of course the physical stuff comes first, the stuff we are told about. These are those common aches and pains that sort of sneak up on you. You begin to find that bending or stooping to pick something up is a lot easier than getting back up. Later it seems one is as difficult as the other. Then there’s mornings.

            No longer can you wake up at 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. and spring out of bed like a mongoose to start a day at work. Now it takes a little more time to get motivated and the blood flowing. God help you if you’re one of those who still think you can party like a banshee on your days off and still make an Olympic dash out the door and get there on time. A hang over is no longer a hang over but an event marked with “out of body” type realism.

Even on a normal day, a single cup of coffee doesn’t do it for you anymore. You use to make fun or complain about the amount of time it takes for your girlfriend or wife to get ready to go to work in the mornings with remarks like, “Geese, I could have been out the door, there, and done half a days work before you make it to the car.” Instead, you’re thanking her. “Take your time.” you say while trying to gulp down a second.

            If you have one of those jobs where you could often skip lunch in order to get more done, you find that you no longer can. If you do, your body retaliates with hunger pains and greatly diminished energy levels sometimes accompanied with head aches and light headiness, not to mention your reduced level of patience with others. Toward the end of the day you’re often not as proud of your accomplishments of the day as you are happy to get the heck away from there.

            All this is the physical stuff. Stuff you were told about. “Just wait. You’ll see.” People would say. They were right of course. It just sort of sneaks up on you, but it’s the other stuff I’m thinking about. More subtle things. Things I didn’t think I’d ever notice. Things that weren’t told to me so often. Though I can’t remember the name, but one humor writer wrote of it, “You know you’re getting older when the younger ladies no longer “look” at you.

            Recently I’ve been checking out those high school and college reunion sites on the internet. You know, where you sign up for a listing in your graduating class to find others from your class for the purpose of exchanging e-mail to find out what became of them, what they’ve done with their lives, and more often than not, how they’ve fared compared to you, etc. It’s usually the sort of thing only older people will do. Then there’s these “chat lines” or groups to join that share your same interest. This in itself is a clue that you’re aging! When I was young, I had no need for such things as I hung out with these people on a daily basis and had my entire future ahead of me.

            This alone isn’t the “red flag” that signals my aging, for certainly I’ve got a while to go, but there is something these sites have in common that gets me thinking. I’ve even found it when subscribing to various internet entertainment services that deal with music and movie updates. What they have in common is the questionnaire, in particularly a section where you list your likes and dislikes. They usually ask you what are your favorite foods, movies, books, T.V. shows and such. Well, after 50 years I have many favorites. There are just too many to remember, let alone list. Favorite foods? I’m on a seafood diet. I see food, I’ll eat it! You can’t ask me my favorite stuff and expect me to remember them all, nor list the top 5 or 10 on as many lines. The alternative to this is just as bad.

Thus, the “Red Flag”. It used to be that it would be easier to ask me the opposite as “What are your dislikes?”, and I’d have to think a few minutes to fill just a few of the entry lines. Now my dislikes are maybe as many as my likes. To further confirm the “flag” is what some of these dislikes are. I’ve worked in retail grocery and department store business my entire life, and so I’ve had a great deal of time to observe, and if I step on a few toes, just remember it’s not you I’m talking about. These are just a few.

The Dummy behind the cash register:

I’m sure you’ve had your experiences with ‘em. I remind you, I’ve worked retail grocery and department store business my entire life. I’ve seen a lot of it. What is wrong with these people? I realized they are trained to abide by company policies (and they do a mighty find job of it, one-key-punch-at-a-time), but these people are like horses on a race track wearing blinders. They do their jobs one step at a time with no deviation or improvisation regardless of the needs. Therefore, it takes only one customer to back up the whole process to the extent that the cashier becomes frazzled, while you the consumer who ultimately pays her check, must patiently wait as she sorts it all out.

An extreme instance of this happened to me once when I walked to a convenience store late at night (in freezing temperatures), to get a some gas in a gas can. I paid the cashier the $2.00 (Another flag. I remember when $2.00 would buy alot!) and was told I had to wait for the person before me, who at that moment was parked next to the pump, getting out her car to pump her gas. “No Duh.” I thought.

At the pumps the lady was having difficulty opening the access panel to the filler pipe on the side of her car. It would not open.

“Could you help me?” she asked.

“Sure.” I replied, and tried everything. It had one of those releases inside the glove compartment, but no key lock. It would not release and open! Apparently, the cold weather had “frozen” the latch on the outside panel.

“Only thing to do is pry it open.” I said.

“Oh no” she started, “it’s brand new …”

“I agree.” I said. There’s no need to damage it. It was not an emergency situation. She had a quarter tank of gas and not far to go. The next morning sunshine would prevail, free the latch, and she could take it to have it adjusted. She went inside to refund her gas purchase while I got my $2.00 worth in the can. That was a mistake.

Walking away, gas can in hand with $2.00 worth of gas; a voice comes over the outside intercom …

“Hey you! Wait! Come back!” the voice said. “Huh?” I thought, “What now?” So I went inside, of course leaving the gas can outside, and asked …

“What’s wrong?”

“You got her gas.” The cashier said.

“Now wait a minute,” I said, “Did I not pay you for $2.00?”

“Yes,” she said “but you got her gas!”

“How so? I paid $2.00 and got $2.00, and this lady was just refunded the $10.00 she previously purchased but didn’t get.”

“Yes but you got …” she started.

“Use your hands, take your shoes off if you have to, but do the math!” I said and walked out, retrieved my can, and went on my way, half laughing, and half amazed

Slow People:

I’m not talking about mentally challenged people. I’m talking about slow people. You’ve dealt with them I’m sure. These are the people that act like they have all the time in the world. Maybe they do, but they should be more considerate of those who don’t. These are the people that will chit-chat with the cashier at the local gas station while there are 10 people standing in line behind him, and this could be rush hour. These are the people who, although they obviously see you’re in a hurry, will stand in your way making idle conversation. These are the ones that see me approaching pulling a pallet of water and still move at a snails pace to get out of the way, all the while talking to each other. Never mind that the pallet of water could squash us all like a bug.

There is a narrow hall in the back of our store that leads to the offices, break room, restroom, work stations and time clocks. These people will invariably walk down the center of the narrow hall, at-a-snails-pace, and taking up the entire passageway while you’re doing this dance number behind them, to your left, to your right, looking for the chance to go around them. When you get around them, if you get around them, they give you this look as if to say, “What’s wrong?”

There are many variations of these kinds. Perhaps you know of a few.

Slow People type II:

This is the person that stops. I mean just stops. They’re the one that can’t seem to do two things at once, talk and work at the same time, or chew gum and read. I’ve worked with several of these people. Now I’m all for socializing at work. I mean we spend 40+ hours a week in each others company. Many spend more time in the company of co-workers and fellow associates than they do with their spouse. In effect that makes you family, and one should treat each other in the work place as such (unless you come from a dysfunctional family such as me) and should enjoy yourself at work. These people though don’t know when or where to draw the line.

One example is a guy I worked with that if you spoke to him, he’d completely stop whatever activity he was engaged in, and then prolongs a brief interchange of words into a leisure conversation that would last as long as one would allow. This is the type where I often found myself telling others...

“Don’t interrupt him. If you stop him, I have to restart him!”

This reminds me of the theory of relativity where Einstein says that time is personal, that we go by our own clocks or something as such. Well these peoples’ clocks are S-L-O-W.

Remember where you read this the next time you’re late for a date, or an appointment of some kind, and the guy with the six pack, three people up from you, is “hee-hawing” with the dummy behind the cash register while digging in his pocket for the money to pay, then decides he needs to purchase a dozen lotto tickets.

Dummy Supervisor:

Not much to say here. This is the ill trained, inexperienced person that the cashier has to call, who has to call another ill trained, inexperienced person to sort out and fix what the cashier screwed up because the slow person whom they just served stood around “hee-hawing” and “jaw-jacking” with them until they forgot what they were doing. All the while you’re about to pee in your pants because you had that second and third cup of coffee this morning while waiting for your significant other to get ready.

Cell Phones:

Geese! What’s the deal? How much can people talk on a phone? I have one, though I rarely use it. First of all, I have no one to call, though if I did I don’t think I’d spend hours a day on it. I’ve got one of those prepaid phones. I bought it for emergency purposes and so far is primarily what it’s used for. I spend approximately $25.00 every two months on it. For that I keep several hours on it all the time. I figure if I can’t say what needs to be said in a couple hours, I shouldn’t have one. That’s what most people say. They say things like “I hardly use mine” or “You don’t see me on mine all the time.” Then their phone rings. I really like the people that say that while they have one hanging on their ear. “What’s that? Jewelry?” I want to ask

I keep thinking that maybe one day I’ll carry a small pad with me and make a mark for every time I see someone talking on theirs. Maybe even break it down some as sex and age groups. Maybe a subcategory for those I see using it while driving. And then there was the time I went into a public restroom and there was a guy in the stall doing what a guy in the stall of a public restroom is supposed to do. While talking on his cell phone! What category would I give that? Maybe the Slow Person type II could gain something from this guy.

John Q. Public:

Talk about blinders. Like I said I apologize if I step on a few toes, but that means you, if only in a general sense. As I said I’ve worked in the retail business all my life and have had plenty of time to observe. What is it with you people? Can’t ya’ll put something back where it belongs after you decide you don’t want it? If you change your mind about an item to purchase, do you have to leave it at the other side of the store?

Let me explain something here… the difference between a walk-in freezer, and a cooler. They are both large vaults of varying sizes with just a couple of major differences. It has been my experience of over thirty years that one is kept at 0° and the other somewhere around 45°. Another difference besides the items kept in each, or the state of said items, is the small amounts of frost or lack of that collects when the humidity in the air freezes on contact with metal surfaces. Folks, this is a good rule to apply in regards to the differences between a frozen food display case, and a fresh food display case.

This will help when you think of placing items in such inappropriate places as milk and eggs in the ice cream freezer, ice cream in the garden center, bras in a meat case, and meats anywhere there is not refrigeration!

Do you have to open everything? And if you do, (and decide to purchase that item) then why not purchase the one you opened? I realize that somethings, most things for some people, are difficult to put back as they were before. Some items are so meticulously packed that you wonder how they got put in there to begin with. So you put the item back, half out of it's package, and take the  unopened one next to it. Well, if your having a hard time with it, what makes you think the employee can do it better?

One item that really gets me is socks! Regular, white, socks. Why would anyone need to open a sealed package of socks? It clearly states the size on the outside of the package. White athletic type socks have remained pretty much unchanged over the last few decades. What's there to inspect? This can be said for men's briefs as well. I've been wearing the same type white cotton, Fruit of the Looms since preschool and they've changed little, if at all! Yet, everyday there will be packages ripped open laying about or “punched” back onto the pegs from which they hung. Even worse, why not inspect the package the person before you ripped open? Do you have to destroy another?

Recently we underwent a complete remodel. Everything in the store was rearranged and replaced with new. There was a small army of people there five days a week, twenty four hours a day for ten weeks. Everyone worked hard! By the morning of everyday, the section of the store of which was worked the previous night was immaculate! By the evening of that day it was destroyed, that storm named John Q. Public did it in. Everyday it literally took hours, dozens of man hours, to put it back together. Geese ‘John Q’ have a little courtesy.

What about the guy who takes an item from a display knocking several more down which lands on his feet. He looks down at the several items and instead of replacing those walks away so that the next animal wearing blinders will promptly run over them with a full cart. No matter that the said items could be very squash-able cupcakes or such, they could have been land mines and it wouldn’t matter. Oh well, maybe he’s getting older too and experiencing those first physical signs such as slight discomfort when bending over to pick something up

Well these are just a few of the things. Just a few ‘flags’ that are telling me I’m getting older. I think from now on when I fill out one those questionnaires and get to the likes and dislikes section I'll simply reply in the likes column “everything”. For the dislikes, I’ll post this to a website and just send them here.