September 23, 2006
"Senile moments” seem to be catching on with others my age and what a relief it is to find I am not the only one experiencing them.
You know those senile moments we all get from time to time, the ones that cause us to say and do unexpected things.
The worst of it is when this happens. I get my “tang all tongueled up” as I am oft to say.
I just cannot seem to say what I mean.
I can tell when I goof up, too, because people younger than I, especially my offspring, look bewildered and roll their eyes.
People my age actually understand my mixed-up words and sentences.
I do not have to clarify a thing. They get it.
So, apparently, we aging Boomers speak our own jumbled language.
Mixing up words and phrases requires me to concentrate fiercely before speaking.
Otherwise, I might say “my ankle” is going to visit next week when I mean to say “my uncle.”
Not only do we mix our words, but we also mix up our modifiers leaving the listener completely mystified, unless of course they are one of us.
Just the other day, I was trying on a dress in a department store when I heard another woman say to the sales associate, “Could I try on that dress in the window?”
The sales lady answered so sweetly with her own senile moment, “I am so sorry ma’am, you’ll have to use the dressing room like everyone else.”
I just wasn’t sure who had the greater senile moment, the customer or the sales person, and the heck of it is, I understood both of them!
Went to lunch with some neighbors, and we discussed our own senile episodes that seem to happen over and over again of late.
No escaping them. One even happened during lunch.
When we ordered our meal, I asked for a straw.
When we finished our lunch and were ready to leave, the waitress who was about my age, said, “I am so sorry. I forgot your straw and now it is too late.”
“No problem,” I said. “I forgot I asked for one.”
About that time, one of my neighbors pulls from her purse a gift from her daughter who apparently was expecting her mother to have an embarrassing moment at the restaurant.
The gift was a Tide-to-Go pen to hide spills from blouses or shirts just in case one should happen to spill one’s food.
None of this is a laughing matter, really it isn’t.
Stop laughing.
We fifty-plus folks are serious about these mental gaps.
We are having trouble with erratic bouts of confusion, surprising spills, and embarrassing moments. Call them by whatever name you like.
They dog us.
Even when we try to make something perfectly clear, we can still sound confusing.
Steven Wright said he has an answering machine in his car now, so the message he recorded made perfect sense to him. Perhaps, it didn’t to his callers. His message says, “I’m home now, but leave a message and I’ll call you back when I’m out.”
Nothing sums up my premise more unclearly than this passage from a detective novel by Douglas Adams.
The UK author of “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency” offers this excerpt that incomprehensibly explains my point.
“My dear chap!” he said. “My dear chap! My dear, dear chap! What was I saying?”
“Er, you were saying ‘My dear chap.’”
“Yes, but I feel sure it was a prelude to something….You have no idea what I was about to say?”
“No.”
“Oh, well, I suppose I should be pleased. If everyone knew exactly what I was going to say, then there would be no point in my saying it, would there?”
