A new Unofficial Excuse has been added to the traditional list that includes "The dog ate my homework," and "The alarm didn't go off." The new excuse is, " I had a 20-minute phone conversation with Mitch McConnell." If you need to head to the loo and wish to use a euphemism to explain why you are leaving the meeting, you can say, "Excuse me, folks. I need to go have a 20-minute phone conversation with Mitch McConnell."
Driving home from work one day, I repeatedly reminded myself to stop at the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. Then I started listening to a story on the radio about tips for memory improvement. I drove right past the pharmacy and all the way home, being so wrapped up in the radio broadcast.
I'm worse. I'm handicapped and don't drive. I once had 2 errands to run and kept telling the Uber driver he was going the wrong way and making him take turns places he shouldn't have because just in the time it took for him to pick me up (less than 5 minutes) I had completely forgotten about the 1st place I meant to go and couldn't understand why he kept trying to take weird routes to the place my brain was going but his GPS wasn't. I tipped well. 🥴🤣
I am 66. A couple weeks ago I had my annual physical. I told my doctor that I had noticed that I had been forgetting small, trivial things. Not remembering something I went to the grocery store to get, sometimes even standing in the shower and forgetting whether I’d already shampooed my hair or not. She responded, “the fact that you were worried about it makes me not worried about it. If you know you’re forgetting things you’re fine. It’s when you’re forgetting things and you don’t know it that there is a problem.”
Except, of course, if you don't recognize a problem, you are unlikely to mention it to your doctor in the first place. That explains why folks with this problem rarely receive help.
Yes really - the difference between slight forgetfulness as a normal part of the aging process, and the onset of dementia, is sometimes marked by the person’s own self-awareness. Which is why she said, if you’re worried about it (meaning if you’re aware of it) I’m not worried about it.
One sign that I am getting (have gotten) old, at age 75: I almost immediately regret LOLing at humorous commentary on the physical/mental decline of public figures. And I mean, DAMN, so much of it is flat-out HILARIOUS -- wittily worded, imaginatively metaphored, etc. I am in awe of writers who can craft invective like that...
But DAMN, again: I look down at the backs of my hands and see what used to be called liver spots; I use a FitBit which reminds me daily that I'm wasting my time using a FitBit; I've been prescribed a PT routine which should enable me easily to tie my goddam right sneaker without having to herniate myself just getting that ankle elevated enough; I count on my wife to wake me up when a smoke detector beeps listlessly because my hearing aids are charging overnight; I've lost mental touch with 50% of the names (of celebrities, TV shows and movies, cousins...) I used to be able to summon up without hesitation...
I'm not so far gone as to give The Orange One (say) a pass because "he can't help himself." But more and more I'm shifting the blame to all the so-called enablers and encouragers. I can easily tell what the fnck is wrong with HIM -- but what's THEIR excuse???
I was probably a crappy employee because I'd never have wanted a job that badly. And, like, we KNOW -- given the way the world works -- that all of these people will be able to find jobs FOREVER. Utter mystery.
This isn't China or Japan; we don't revere our elders. In fact, often young people roll their eyes and think or say, "Right, Boomer" when we speak. So why does anyone vote for someone older than say, 65? I know we are in better shape than our parents or grandparents were at Medicare age, but good grief, it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, your insides, including your brain, are OLD. Commercial pilots have a mandatory retirement age of 65, and they all have fewer than 1,000 people's lives depending on their fitness at any one time. Yet we let the elderly run the entire country?
It is generally believed that with age comes a certain amount of worldly wisdom. I'm 84 and think there may be truth to that, with some caveats. There are those who started out stupid or mean or both, and the years only increased their characteristics (not talking about about anyone in particular, of course).
I think you're right. Wisdom is I think something like our scalps . All the other stuff -- facts, faces, and so on -- is more like dandruff which just flakes off.
I think the law should be that you may not run for office once you hit 80. You may complete your term but then must retire. And we need a mandatory retirement of 80 on the Supreme Court. I feel like that pretty generous - perhaps those ages really should be 75. After all, we have age requirements for how old you must be to run for president- why not limits on how old you cannot be?
Trump could have run under that rule. (Because of section 3 of the 14th Amendment, he couldn't run because he is an insurrectionist, but that's another matter, which his supporters on the Supreme Court took care of.) How about you can't run if you will turn 80 during your term? (That would exclude me, but I would selflessly give up my opportunity to be president.)
Yeah, I’d go for that. It pretty much is the same as having 75 be the cut off. It would interesting how the public would vote on this. All the representatives are so darn old it would be against their own self interests to institute this.
I am 80 and in the best physical shape I’ve been in years due to post-cancer fear of death and the resulting regimen of a Mediterranean Diet and workouts. However, I have experienced everything you mentioned, Gene, though the raising of the car seat capability was learned in 2024 in my 2010 vehicle and I’m removing protective coatings from numerous products that I’ve had for years. I give myself credit at 80 for finally noticing the protective coatings. I agree wholeheartedly that we should not have all the ancients running things but I will point out that all of these folks were elected and not all of the voters were seniors. Because of elections I don’t agree with term limits but I am becoming more and more inclined to support age limits.
Great photo and headline! But not noticing those things about the refrigerator, scale, and car may be signs of not being mechanically inclined rather than of being old. Would you have noticed them when you were young? Intellectuals having deep thoughts can't be bothered with the fine points of material objects like refrigerators, scales, and cars.
You also have to consider changes in details of daily life. When you and I were young there was no such thing, when buying a new product, as removing thin protective films from digital displays, because the latter only existed in settings like the Starship Enterprise.
A fuddler, I gather, helps to prevent befuddlement. It should not be confused with the one that resembles a brown mole -- the animal, not the skin growth. Google it.
I didn't notice my dishwasher's protective film until 4 years after I bought it -- and then only because there eventually appeared a dime-sized mark on it that I realized was a rip in the film. When I called the dealer about this, he asked if his store had installed the dishwasher -- because they always remove the film. When I replied that a friend had picked it up and installed it for me, he said the guy obviously didn't know about the film.
At first I was going to peel it off, but then said to myself: "Why? It's doing a fine job of protection and is totally unnoticeable." I was going to cover the little spot with a decorative decal or something, but I just left it alone.
My birthday was yesterday and now I am 73. It wouldn’t be so bad if everything didn’t hurt. We were in Cleveland visiting our son for the past week. Power walking through the Hopkins airport at 6:50 AM Wednesday morning, to get to the gate 7 minutes before the scheduled departure time, we found the plane had gone already. We were rescheduled to the next flight, so all was well. However the next morning I discovered a new pain. My ankles hurt from the power walk. Old age requires extra stamina.
Am 74, and finding that aging is less funny on almost an hourly basis. Although I do laugh at myself for the dopey stuff I (more and more) frequently do.
I've had Penelope Prius for 14.5 years, and there are buttons on the console the function of which I have absolutely no idea. The graphical icons are entirely unhelpful. I'm not sure whether this is age or perhaps lack of motivation to drag out the owner's manual. There are also inscrutable icons on the LCD screen that seem important.
Right. Inability to work the gadgetry and decipher the icons on a 21st-century vehicle has nothing to do with aging. The manufacturers apparently assume illiteracy on the part of buyers, so no actual words to guide us. And the manual runs north of 500 pages with an execrable index and constant iteration of the words, "depending on model," so you don't know if you have that particular doodad anyhow.
The best and most reliable way to obtain car dashboard lights info is to google CarModelYear_errors and find the Reddit thread (yes, there will be one.) Reddit hasn't yet been taken over by AI so you'll find at least five people with the same question as you have.
Ah. The 500 page manual….We have a 2018 Chevy pickup and a 2025 Honda Accord, both packed with info on connectivity, displays and other junk unconnected to the basic function of driving from here to there, mostly contributing to the hazards of distracted driving.
We have a 2017 Subaru Outback. Every now and then I accidentally hit one of the Mystery Levers on the steering wheel and all sorts of feature icons pop up that I didn't know about, don't understand, and still don't care about.
Hate to break it to you Dear Leader --- but you're normal. Our brains are constantly triaging what matters. Most of that triage happens below awareness. Life today is like having 47 browser tabs open but only seeing one. The others still drain the battery. The brain’s "failures" --- misnaming people, overlooking the transparent stickers and not noticing some vehicle functions for years --- are actually adaptive features that evolved to keep you alive, not to keep you perfectly attentive in a modern environment. The brain is not designed to be a perfect recorder. It's designed to be a selective, energy-efficient threat detector. Most "senior moments" are your brain protecting you from wasting energy on details that historically didn’t matter. Modern life demands precision, thoroughness, and constant attention. Evolution gave you speed, filtering, and efficiency. This mismatch creates the moments you’re describing --- evolutionary protections misfiring in a modern context. I'd go into more detail but I've managed to bore myself.
I am the official plastic film remover in our household because my husband for some reason never seems to want to do this. I think he wants to keep the [whatever] pristine. My nemesis, however, has been our refrigerator. It was actually the second one delivered because after the first one was delivered and installed, we discovered a large dent and demanded a replacement. It's possible the new delivery team were understandably impatient, but they failed to completely remove the plastic wrap that is somehow sealed into the door gaskets. When I pointed this out, they were cavalier, saying it would come out on its own eventually. Many years later, it has not come out—just turned brown and unsightly and collected grunge.
I went through the rigamarole of unwrapping a picture frame, putting in the artwork, pounding a hanger in the wall, and hanging up the picture. Several days later, I looked at it and went, "Huh! Why does it look so BLURRY?" Yep. Plastic film on both sides of the glass.
A new Unofficial Excuse has been added to the traditional list that includes "The dog ate my homework," and "The alarm didn't go off." The new excuse is, " I had a 20-minute phone conversation with Mitch McConnell." If you need to head to the loo and wish to use a euphemism to explain why you are leaving the meeting, you can say, "Excuse me, folks. I need to go have a 20-minute phone conversation with Mitch McConnell."
😂
😂
It's quite possible that Lindsey Graham's last communication was a 17 minute talk with McConnell.
Driving home from work one day, I repeatedly reminded myself to stop at the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. Then I started listening to a story on the radio about tips for memory improvement. I drove right past the pharmacy and all the way home, being so wrapped up in the radio broadcast.
That is a GREAT story. (I've probably got a matching one but, if so, can't remember it. 🤣)
My mother's standing joke is that she bought the brain/memory supplements, but never remembered to take them.
My wife did the same thing. Maybe we're related?
I'm worse. I'm handicapped and don't drive. I once had 2 errands to run and kept telling the Uber driver he was going the wrong way and making him take turns places he shouldn't have because just in the time it took for him to pick me up (less than 5 minutes) I had completely forgotten about the 1st place I meant to go and couldn't understand why he kept trying to take weird routes to the place my brain was going but his GPS wasn't. I tipped well. 🥴🤣
been there. done that.
I am 66. A couple weeks ago I had my annual physical. I told my doctor that I had noticed that I had been forgetting small, trivial things. Not remembering something I went to the grocery store to get, sometimes even standing in the shower and forgetting whether I’d already shampooed my hair or not. She responded, “the fact that you were worried about it makes me not worried about it. If you know you’re forgetting things you’re fine. It’s when you’re forgetting things and you don’t know it that there is a problem.”
Except, of course, if you don't recognize a problem, you are unlikely to mention it to your doctor in the first place. That explains why folks with this problem rarely receive help.
Correct - dementia is usually noticed by a family member, not by the person who has it
Really?!?
Yes really - the difference between slight forgetfulness as a normal part of the aging process, and the onset of dementia, is sometimes marked by the person’s own self-awareness. Which is why she said, if you’re worried about it (meaning if you’re aware of it) I’m not worried about it.
One sign that I am getting (have gotten) old, at age 75: I almost immediately regret LOLing at humorous commentary on the physical/mental decline of public figures. And I mean, DAMN, so much of it is flat-out HILARIOUS -- wittily worded, imaginatively metaphored, etc. I am in awe of writers who can craft invective like that...
But DAMN, again: I look down at the backs of my hands and see what used to be called liver spots; I use a FitBit which reminds me daily that I'm wasting my time using a FitBit; I've been prescribed a PT routine which should enable me easily to tie my goddam right sneaker without having to herniate myself just getting that ankle elevated enough; I count on my wife to wake me up when a smoke detector beeps listlessly because my hearing aids are charging overnight; I've lost mental touch with 50% of the names (of celebrities, TV shows and movies, cousins...) I used to be able to summon up without hesitation...
I'm not so far gone as to give The Orange One (say) a pass because "he can't help himself." But more and more I'm shifting the blame to all the so-called enablers and encouragers. I can easily tell what the fnck is wrong with HIM -- but what's THEIR excuse???
They CAN "easily tell what the fnck is wrong with HIM" -- but they will never admit it because they'd lose their jobs.
I was probably a crappy employee because I'd never have wanted a job that badly. And, like, we KNOW -- given the way the world works -- that all of these people will be able to find jobs FOREVER. Utter mystery.
The oligarchs will make sure they have well-paying jobs.
This isn't China or Japan; we don't revere our elders. In fact, often young people roll their eyes and think or say, "Right, Boomer" when we speak. So why does anyone vote for someone older than say, 65? I know we are in better shape than our parents or grandparents were at Medicare age, but good grief, it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, your insides, including your brain, are OLD. Commercial pilots have a mandatory retirement age of 65, and they all have fewer than 1,000 people's lives depending on their fitness at any one time. Yet we let the elderly run the entire country?
It is generally believed that with age comes a certain amount of worldly wisdom. I'm 84 and think there may be truth to that, with some caveats. There are those who started out stupid or mean or both, and the years only increased their characteristics (not talking about about anyone in particular, of course).
I think you're right. Wisdom is I think something like our scalps . All the other stuff -- facts, faces, and so on -- is more like dandruff which just flakes off.
I think the law should be that you may not run for office once you hit 80. You may complete your term but then must retire. And we need a mandatory retirement of 80 on the Supreme Court. I feel like that pretty generous - perhaps those ages really should be 75. After all, we have age requirements for how old you must be to run for president- why not limits on how old you cannot be?
Trump could have run under that rule. (Because of section 3 of the 14th Amendment, he couldn't run because he is an insurrectionist, but that's another matter, which his supporters on the Supreme Court took care of.) How about you can't run if you will turn 80 during your term? (That would exclude me, but I would selflessly give up my opportunity to be president.)
Yeah, I’d go for that. It pretty much is the same as having 75 be the cut off. It would interesting how the public would vote on this. All the representatives are so darn old it would be against their own self interests to institute this.
I am 80 and in the best physical shape I’ve been in years due to post-cancer fear of death and the resulting regimen of a Mediterranean Diet and workouts. However, I have experienced everything you mentioned, Gene, though the raising of the car seat capability was learned in 2024 in my 2010 vehicle and I’m removing protective coatings from numerous products that I’ve had for years. I give myself credit at 80 for finally noticing the protective coatings. I agree wholeheartedly that we should not have all the ancients running things but I will point out that all of these folks were elected and not all of the voters were seniors. Because of elections I don’t agree with term limits but I am becoming more and more inclined to support age limits.
Great photo and headline! But not noticing those things about the refrigerator, scale, and car may be signs of not being mechanically inclined rather than of being old. Would you have noticed them when you were young? Intellectuals having deep thoughts can't be bothered with the fine points of material objects like refrigerators, scales, and cars.
The general sense of befuddlement has increased over time.
You also have to consider changes in details of daily life. When you and I were young there was no such thing, when buying a new product, as removing thin protective films from digital displays, because the latter only existed in settings like the Starship Enterprise.
Perhaps your doctor should check your fuddler.
A fuddler, I gather, helps to prevent befuddlement. It should not be confused with the one that resembles a brown mole -- the animal, not the skin growth. Google it.
I didn't notice my dishwasher's protective film until 4 years after I bought it -- and then only because there eventually appeared a dime-sized mark on it that I realized was a rip in the film. When I called the dealer about this, he asked if his store had installed the dishwasher -- because they always remove the film. When I replied that a friend had picked it up and installed it for me, he said the guy obviously didn't know about the film.
At first I was going to peel it off, but then said to myself: "Why? It's doing a fine job of protection and is totally unnoticeable." I was going to cover the little spot with a decorative decal or something, but I just left it alone.
My birthday was yesterday and now I am 73. It wouldn’t be so bad if everything didn’t hurt. We were in Cleveland visiting our son for the past week. Power walking through the Hopkins airport at 6:50 AM Wednesday morning, to get to the gate 7 minutes before the scheduled departure time, we found the plane had gone already. We were rescheduled to the next flight, so all was well. However the next morning I discovered a new pain. My ankles hurt from the power walk. Old age requires extra stamina.
Am 74, and finding that aging is less funny on almost an hourly basis. Although I do laugh at myself for the dopey stuff I (more and more) frequently do.
I've had Penelope Prius for 14.5 years, and there are buttons on the console the function of which I have absolutely no idea. The graphical icons are entirely unhelpful. I'm not sure whether this is age or perhaps lack of motivation to drag out the owner's manual. There are also inscrutable icons on the LCD screen that seem important.
Right. Inability to work the gadgetry and decipher the icons on a 21st-century vehicle has nothing to do with aging. The manufacturers apparently assume illiteracy on the part of buyers, so no actual words to guide us. And the manual runs north of 500 pages with an execrable index and constant iteration of the words, "depending on model," so you don't know if you have that particular doodad anyhow.
Oh yes. Martha Baine, 81, driving an otherwise great 2020 RAV4 whose cab was obviously designed by a phone-addicted 6'2" gymnast in his twenties.
The best and most reliable way to obtain car dashboard lights info is to google CarModelYear_errors and find the Reddit thread (yes, there will be one.) Reddit hasn't yet been taken over by AI so you'll find at least five people with the same question as you have.
Ah. The 500 page manual….We have a 2018 Chevy pickup and a 2025 Honda Accord, both packed with info on connectivity, displays and other junk unconnected to the basic function of driving from here to there, mostly contributing to the hazards of distracted driving.
You should see the newer Prius models. Ours has more screens, icons, and settings than a Boeing 787.
We have a 2017 Subaru Outback. Every now and then I accidentally hit one of the Mystery Levers on the steering wheel and all sorts of feature icons pop up that I didn't know about, don't understand, and still don't care about.
Hate to break it to you Dear Leader --- but you're normal. Our brains are constantly triaging what matters. Most of that triage happens below awareness. Life today is like having 47 browser tabs open but only seeing one. The others still drain the battery. The brain’s "failures" --- misnaming people, overlooking the transparent stickers and not noticing some vehicle functions for years --- are actually adaptive features that evolved to keep you alive, not to keep you perfectly attentive in a modern environment. The brain is not designed to be a perfect recorder. It's designed to be a selective, energy-efficient threat detector. Most "senior moments" are your brain protecting you from wasting energy on details that historically didn’t matter. Modern life demands precision, thoroughness, and constant attention. Evolution gave you speed, filtering, and efficiency. This mismatch creates the moments you’re describing --- evolutionary protections misfiring in a modern context. I'd go into more detail but I've managed to bore myself.
Fits my approach. My time is limited. Don’t bother me with irrelevance and the inconsequential.
Spreading dismay and washed in the spray? Way too vague. And doubleheaders has one syllable too many.
Do I win?
Yes! You win a 20-minute phone conversation with Mitch McConnell!
Starting in no fewer than 20 minutes, please.
Bring your ouija board.
😂😂
Agreed. The second one didn’t scan.
Maybe, it should try limericks.
It is prosody's metrical foot
That describes where the stresses are put
Or a poem won't scan
And the fury you'll fan
Of the Empress who'll turn it to soot.
yes.
He's Schrödinger's Senator--dead and alive at the same time, apparently.
The second poem scans wrong.
My thought, too.
I am the official plastic film remover in our household because my husband for some reason never seems to want to do this. I think he wants to keep the [whatever] pristine. My nemesis, however, has been our refrigerator. It was actually the second one delivered because after the first one was delivered and installed, we discovered a large dent and demanded a replacement. It's possible the new delivery team were understandably impatient, but they failed to completely remove the plastic wrap that is somehow sealed into the door gaskets. When I pointed this out, they were cavalier, saying it would come out on its own eventually. Many years later, it has not come out—just turned brown and unsightly and collected grunge.
I went through the rigamarole of unwrapping a picture frame, putting in the artwork, pounding a hanger in the wall, and hanging up the picture. Several days later, I looked at it and went, "Huh! Why does it look so BLURRY?" Yep. Plastic film on both sides of the glass.