I was at the dentist the other day getting a filling repaired. It wasn’t usual dentist, since he was too busy with another patient. Fair enough, I’ve often been the one that breaks into the schedule in the middle of the day to have something or another looked at.
While they were working the doctor and her assistant were chatting about all sorts of things. The assistant was complaining that all her protein shakes and overcomplicated ingredients to give her energy and focus appeared not to be working. I was gonna tell her why doesn’t she simply eat healthy normal foods, but it came out as why can’t you use caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol like everybody else?
While they were drilling away she was talking about how all her friends appeared to be taking no steps to taking care of themselves. To that I told them, once they got the dental dam out, that they will pay mightily when they are older for everything done when they were young.
In my case, my left foot which got broken in two places through stupidity, aches when it’s cold outside. My hips hurt from having wrecked dirt bikes and street bikes as well as years of jogging. I now enjoy arthritis building in both them and my shoulders. My stomach is ruined by a horrible diet which caused reflux, which went into my lungs and messed them up.
I won’t even get into the collateral damage that chemo and radiation therapy causes.
But the one thing that hasn’t aged really well is my hearing. Way too much loud music, way too much power tools back in the day, way too many loud motors. Make no mistake I can actually hear quite well when it’s quiet. I can hear a squirrel walking along the fence, I can hear birds fluttering in the trees, the footsteps of something running around on the lawn.
But I can hear that if there’s any other sound. This is why in my piece about going to mass over the holidays, I moaned about people chattering wiping out my ability to hear anything else.
This is also why am constantly amazed by the morons I see and hear driving past in their cars. The worst are some of the motorcycles. You can hear them a mile away. When they go by the house, they are intensely loud. I cannot even imagine what it’s like riding one of those. But the cars are just as bad. I’ve ridden in cars with loud exhaust before. It’s punishing.
But the worst, bar none, are the people with the super loud audio systems and unbelievably stupid subwoofers. I sat at a light feeling that bass, and seeing the vibrations on their hood deck. You can practically feel it when they drive by when I’m sitting in my office.
Yesterday I was at Sam’s and I heard incredibly loud music. I thought they had some sort of event, or band was getting ready to play. Nope, it was a shithead in a little Japanese car. It was so loud it was like I was sitting in front of the stage at a concert.
These people are going to be stone cold deaf before they’re 50.
Hope like hell my tax dollars are going to pay for that. Nope, they surely will.
So that’s my advice to the youngsters, now that I’m on the other side of 60. Take care of yourself early. Because when you get older you won’t get any of that back, and you will struggle to keep what you have, and be surprised how fast you can lose it.
I stopped my weightlifting routine a month ago because of the cold, and because of my lungs acting up with the creeping crud. It’s all gone. All my gains, gone.
Hopefully I’ll get it back. But it’s gonna take a ton of work.
Get fit. Stay fit.
Inspected By Pat 