Signposts of happiness,
From my front door, I can see thousands of airborne dandelion seeds floating along in the morning breeze. It looks like the angels had a pillow fight during the night, causing a huge fallout of feathers.
Now that summer’s here, there’s a pollen plague in the city. My eyes feel like I’ve rubbed them with Tabasco sauce. My head is so stuffed, I could be a bell pepper at a yuppie barbecue.
But I’m in a great mood, if a bit wheezy. I just completed an online quiz called “Top 50 signs of getting old.” And I aced it. (Find it by Googling Engage Mutual, an insurance company, and clicking on Reading Room.)
My score indicates that I’m a sprightly young thing, not a dismal old bag tottering toward the grave.
The key to these Methuselah tests is to never answer a question in a way that makes you look like a complainer. Be evasive, equivocate whenever possible, but never moan. Whining about everything modern whacks the wrinkles on you.
The quiz’s second question was “Groaning when you bend down? Agree/disagree.” I ticked disagree even though some mornings I’m stiffer than the tempered-glass on rink boards.
I answered honestly because I never groan, I grunt. All my people grunt. We’re grunters. Jane Good-all lived with my family for years, studying us because we’re such notable grunters. In my case, she isolated 37 separate grunts, from a low bleating when pouring cereal into a bowl to full-throated grunts sounded when bending over to pick up a magazine off the floor.
Among primates, only those stripey-ass -baboons grunt more than I do, Good-all concluded.
There were several quiz questions about interactions with young people, including: finding you have no idea what young people are talking about, can’t remember any modern bands, saying “In my day,” saying “It wasn’t like that when I was young.”
I checked disagree for all of ’em. I did so on the strength of a recent conversation I had with a young dude at a party. The summer’s top song — Get Lucky by Daft Punk — was on the radio at the time. “That’s Nile Rodgers on guitar, doing the same thing he did with Chic in the Seventies. Come on, it’s so derivative,” I told him. “OK,” he said pleasantly, backing away from me.
Even the strictest examiner would agree that this incident shows I have an amazing empathy with today’s youth.
There were other questions that centred on struggles with technology, including “Losing touch with everyday technology, such as tablets and television?”
Again, I disagreed. I went for a long drive in a shiny ’14 Ford a while ago. How cutting edge is that? I should mention it was a 1914 Model T Ford. We have friends who belong to a heritage car club, and they took us for a spin on the backroads,
‘The quiz taught me that signs of aging are really signposts of happiness, or at least contentment. Would you really want to be in high school again? Not me’
all the way from Bells Corners to Merrickville and Smiths Falls. It was the best day out I’ve had in months. As we drove along, tons of people smiled and waved at us. Others gave us a thumbs up and a toot of the horn to show solidarity.
It’s impossible not to smile when you’re in the back seat of a Model T, I found. The experience also gave me an out on the question, “You start driving very slowly.” I disagreed, of course, because we sailed along at top speed in the Model T, top speed being about 30 miles per hour.
The tour ended with an old-fashioned church supper in the village of Fallowfield, southwest of Bells Corners. If you want to feel young, sit down to a turkey-with-all-the-trimmings meal prepared by the wonderful women at Fallowfield United Church.
The coleslaw was made by a lady named Irma, I was told. When it comes to shredded cabbage dressing, Irma is a marvel. I think there was a smidgen of dry mustard in her ’slaw that made all the difference.
At the front of the church hall stood a table laden with homemade pies: strawberry-rhubarb, lemon meringue, raspberry, apple and half a dozen others. One lady chose her pie first, before the meal was served. I admired her bold spirit.
The quiz taught me that signs of aging are really signposts of happiness, or at least contentment. Would you really want to be in high school again? Not me.
Getting older means you can do what you want, mostly. Like having two pieces of pie for dessert.