Whittling Away with Dick Brooks - The Little Things

One of the many discoveries that I’ve made on this journey through the years is that the older you are the less the big problems of youth bother you.  The options concerning how I will wear my hair have been eliminated.  I am no longer worried about loosing my hair I now keep it in a small box in my sock drawer.  The need to dress in the current fashions, whatever they may be, has ceased.  Droopy drawers occur naturally at my age and aren’t necessarily a fashion statement.  Comfort and the common laws of decency dictate my apparel, that and following the gentle dictates of The Queen, I usually manage to look relatively respectable.  I’ve almost stopped trying to impress members of the opposite sex.  Pulling my tummy in when one enters the room is a bigger job than it used to be and I can’t hold my breath as long as I used to.  I am learning to relax and admit that there are certain things that I’m never going to be able to do.  Licking my elbow is one of them, I’ve tried every way I could and have added it to my list of things I’m not likely to accomplish.  That list includes folding a fitted sheet and finding the opening in a garbage bag on the first try.  I’ve learned to stay away from anything that is peal and stick, the sticking part I have no problem with, it’s getting to the sticking part that I have a problem with, I can never get an edge to separate far enough to grasp it so I can pull the darn thing off.

I no longer try to pull those little Styrofoam sheets that are glued over the opening to every little bottle that contains anything in the pill department.  They hide them under the regular cap, super gluing them so they never come off in one piece leaving jagged chunks to catch the pills every time you try to shake one out.  Now when I encounter one, I whip out my ever present Swiss Army knife, stab the little sucker and cut around the rim, no more sticking pills and a pleasant feeling of revenge.  One real annoyance that I haven’t worked out a solution for yet deals with toilet tissue.  I still call it toilet paper but The Queen prefers the word tissue.  Whatever you call it it’s a problem.  It performs its main function well.  The problem is getting the roll started so you can get it off the roll to perform that main function.  Some sicko at the factory, some socially dysfunctional weirdo, has decided that the end of the roll needs to be glued down so it doesn’t flap in transit.  I don’t have long finger nails, maybe they would help.  I pick and pick at that little flap they leave sticking up to amuse you with.  It has no tensile strength at all and shreds as you pick at it.  You tire of picking to get it started and pull on what you have freed and half of the sheet tears away and leaves the other half sitting still glued there.  You can see no use for a ragged half a sheet and as you pull it trying to get it loose all the way you now realize that you have two feet of toilet tissue in your hand and the matching two feet still glued onto the roll.  I think fondly of the toilet paper we used to have in high school, shiny, no perforations and you could still see little pieces of wood in it.  That was paper you could use a Swiss Army knife on.  As you age, it’s the little things that amuse and befuddle you.

Thought for the week—Most of the stuff folks worry about, ain’t gonna happen anyway.

Until next week, may you and yours be happy and well.

Whittle12124@yahoo.com