Archived News of the Week

The Most Common Annoyances of Older People

Can't open jars anymore. Or, actually any darn thing. Not just, but especially, those large jars of Marinated Artichoke Hearts from Costco. Sadists who hate old people made those huge jars with their Frisbee sized lids. I could be in a Gulag starving and not be able to open those jars. The guards would be prying the pristine, unopened jar of life saving marinated artichoke hearts from my cold, dead hands. The bigger lids from the bigger jars from the Big Box Stores do not allow your smaller, older hands to gain any kind of purchase, and you find that you are asking yourself constantly: Why have the manufacturers decided to set their machines to screw the lids on so tightly? You can't remember ever having had this much trouble opening jars before so it must be the manufacturer's fault, not the fact that you look forward to getting your AARP magazine every month nor would you ever dream of wearing thong underwear.

You bang jar lids on the counter top, you run them under hot water, you take your big knife and whack around the lid. You get out the ancient metal jar lid helper your Mother gave you 25 years ago - the one that brutally and bloodily pinches that fleshy part under your thumb when it invariably slips off the lid. It has never worked but you give the lid another go with the ancient jar lid helper while conveniently forgetting the definition of insanity. Again, nothing budges. After putting a band aid on your palm, you decide to finally throw the weapon of hand destruction into the trash, to heck with the fact that your mother gave it to you, God rest her soul. You think about calling your neighbor's teenage daughter to come over to open your jar, but find that too incredibly embarrassing. You decide to leave the artichoke hearts out of the salad.

Can't open this either: That hard plastic molded stuff around everything, especially from Costco. Now, that particular chore requires the terrorists' tool of choice - the box cutter - which is very dangerous even when not wielded by a terrorist on a plane. How can anyone open that hard plastic stuff without hurting themselves? After gingerly examining our body parts after attacking the plastic, we notice scratches, scrapes and gouges on our hands and/or other parts of our body and we have no idea how they got there. It had to have been the box cutters and the plastic. You can't recall.

Wounding via Twilight Zone: This is another annoying yet inexplicable thing that happens to older people: We get these strange cuts and scratches and bruises on our hands, arms, legs, face, ears - actually, anywhere where there is skin to break - ("Oh, look, honey," we say cheerfully, "here's another one. Where are the band aids?") - yet we have no idea how these wounds came to be. After I find one of these mysterious bloody things, I first look at my palm to see if perhaps it's the gift of stigmata, which would make all this strange wounding O.K. Usually it is not. So, it was either the plastic and the box cutters or I hit my hand on the top of the cupboard putting the cups away or an alien drilled me in the middle of the night.

This leads us nicely into what stress might do to those all-important telomeres. (See Newsletter of May 30, 2012). Chronic stress - like trying to open large jars - will damage and shorten telomeres and now that I think of it, I have just channeled one of the secrets of the ancients - I know why old people finally die - they just can't take it anymore. The chronic stress of trying to open the large jars, fooling around dangerously with the hard plastic, trying to understand your new and incomprehensible i-PAD and the frustration of living - electronically handicapped - with all the new and speedy technology. It's just all too much. These chronic stressors shorten telomeres all over the place, until finally, the cranky shortened telomeres just give up the ghost and we become shovel-ready. We can't avoid chronic stress, but we can feed our telomeres some comforting potions to counteract the effects of stress: Try Holy Basil, Bacopa, Cordyceps and Ashwagandha. They are potent adaptogens and will help you calm down from everyday stressors and help your telomeres live long and prosper. (LEF, 4/12)

TIVO-Hell, another common annoyance for older folk: For no reason whatsoever your TIVO (noun) doesn't TIVO (verb!) your favorite show. This is serious as older folk seem to watch a lot of TV and unlike those born after 1990 they were not born with a chip for electronic know-how. If something goes wrong with anything that contains a "chip", it's over, folks. Anyway, they "get to know" certain stars and their shows and feel disloyal if they can't watch, say Julianna Margolies in The Good Wife. They have read about her in People Magazine and have watched her do her attorney thing for 3 seasons now plus they remember her from ER, so there is a loyal familiarity with Julianna. They think they "know" her and that sadly, in some magic of reverse TV, she sees them sitting on the couch and" knows" them right back.

Because of this convoluted psychological freakiness, it is a major frustration when the TIVO spitefully decides to misread your carefully placed button pushings and instead of clicking whatever switch it is in the bowels of TIVO-land that will give you your favorite show, it ignores you. When you first realize, sadly, that you and Juliana won't be relating tonight, and that it's your fault because you are button-stupid, you then instantly and for no good reason segue into worrying about the psychological risk factors for cancer - the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness - and you add a layer of worry to your disappointment at not being able to see Juliana because you have no idea why this happened with the TIVO or how to fix it or when and if it will happen again and you have now become the poor lab rat with the cocaine and the shocks and the cocaine and the shocks. You are totally off-balance. You are confused and sad. Plus you are upset that you have disappointed Julianna who is counting on you.

There are some wonderful supplements for anxiety - the kind of anxiety caused by constantly dealing with the new electronic Wizard of Oz buttons which never take you to Kansas where you of course want to go, but, instead, threaten to take you to a Galaxy, far, far away from which you will never return. These perplexing buttons seem to be everywhere, so get over your old self and just pop a pill and deal. First, before you attempt box cutter mutilation, I would take a Stress Arrest which contains some mood soothing GABA and you will actually find yourself feeling happy while slicing your hand open. Secondly, when your TIVO fails you and you are seriously contemplating drinking the Kool-Aid, I would suggest a product called Nevaton. This life-saver contains a tad of St. John's Wort, plus some Damiana, Schizandra and Skullcap, all of which will help alleviate your constant self-loathing for screwing up the TIVO buttons (yet again) and most everything else in the post-modern world.

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