Wasting time, money to live longer

As a result of the added time I spend at home, I decided to learn how to make great pizza. Finding an equivalent to what I recall enjoying back in my days in Brooklyn has always been a challenge, so I wanted to see it’s possible to perfect my own recipe.

Although I haven’t achieved the result I seek, it’s fair to say I’ve gained great confidence as well as 10 pounds.

I know that because my wife did research on the Internet, input my statistics to calculate the recommended weight for a person my size, printed out the finding, and thrust it before me.

That’s when I learned I was 5 inches too short.

My wife is constantly studying health charts and markers and insisted I take a survey that is supposed to predict life expectancy.

It’s not an exact science, but it involves an exhaustive questionnaire that’s supposed to evaluate one’s lifespan and project a fairly accurate forecast.

I answered lengthy questions about my height, my weight, my gender, my race, my diet, my activities, and much more.

I finally finished the survey after almost an hour, only to discover I passed away five years ago.

That was very disconcerting, especially knowing no one had the courtesy to send a card.

So my wife demanded I make some lifestyle changes, go on a diet and start exercising, insisting resurrection is possible.

She went back to that same survey on the Internet, plugged in a bunch of numbers representing projected goals, and determined I could actually improve my life expectancy by some two decades.

She also insisted it’s high time I have a checkup. So I made an appointment with my doctor and went through a comprehensive physical examination.

On my cellphone.

The entire appointment was on a Zoom conference, and I basically conducted most of the exam myself. He did half the work, took half the time, but still charged 100 percent.

But you have to applaud how far technology has come to arrive at a point where one can accomplish such an in-depth procedure without ever stepping foot in a doctor’s office. I look forward to the time in the near future when I can remove my own gallbladder.

Turns out, the doctor gave me the exact same advice my wife offered, only it cost $200 more.

In fairness, he did recommend I purchase an air purifier when I complained about excessive sneezing.

I found one on sale, so I bought two. That’s because you eventually have to replace the filters, and I discovered such filters cost nearly as much as the unit itself, so it pays to buy a second one with the extra filters thrown in. I do something similar when I run out of ink for my printer because the replacement cartridges are nearly the same price as the printer with the cartridges.

My wife says my plan is wasteful pointing to the fact that I own six printers and have sufficient filters to last five years past my life expectancy.

The new one.