What’s with all these syndromes? You think maybe the
pharmaceutical industry has figured out that if they name things they can
prescribe things? Restless Leg Syndrome. Give me a break. Of course you’ve got
restless legs. You’ve been sitting on your big butt all day. Your legs are restless, man. You don’t need a syndrome. Next we’ll have Horribly Coated
Tongue Syndrome, for the affliction formerly known as “hangover.” There already
is something called Gourmand Syndrome. I’m
sorry. This is so embarrassing. But I . . . I love good food.
Understand—I
have great respect for true syndromes. I’m talking about the sorts of
impairments that steal up on you quietly enough, but that, once rooted in your
consciousness, plunge you into a downward spiral of paranoia and despair. Mine,
THS, we’ll return to.
Not all true syndromes are so devastating. Or they are,
but boomer culture, as is its wont in the face of physical ruin, has
transformed them into coffee-room gags. I’m thinking of CRS here—Can’t Remember
Shit. You know what? I honestly cannot remember shit, and it’s about as funny
as a two-headed chicken.
Throw vision loss in with memory loss you’ve got huge
laughs.
Hey, Hon, seen my
glasses?
Well,
where’d you put them?
We wait a beat, then fall down in hysterics.
That’s how we are, we of a certain age. It’s happening,
but let’s not get all bent up about it quite yet. My hearing loss has developed
an interesting new twist. (Dede and I have already gotten burnt out on the game
of semi-intentional misconstruing: “Did
you take a nap?” “Did I eat a slab of what?”) Now I not only don’t know
what I heard; I don’t know where the sound came from. I might be in the kitchen
and think the ice maker dropped a cube into the tray when actually a throng of
guests just barged through the front door.
But that’s not the one I’m talking about. Here’s the
scene: You turn away from the bathroom sink to head into the bedroom when,
behind you, the Old Spice topples over on the countertop. Or you’ve finished
drying the dishes and begin to put them away when you look back to see one of
the wine glasses teetering in a slow spin. Or maybe a dinner knife goes
clattering to the floor.
You didn’t see any of these things as they happened
because, of course, you weren’t looking. You didn’t used to have to watch your hands
every goddamn second of the day. Now you do, because you have TRAILING HAND
SYNDROME.
I’m the kind of guy who can’t pull a jar of pickles out of
the refrigerator without tossing it up into a couple of slow 360s then catching
it again just right. Know what I’m saying? I’m talking about my hands, my
beautiful, adept, utterly dependable hands. Now they’re just trailing along
behind me, knocking shit over. All loose items are at immediate risk.
Remember the scene in The
Twilight Zone when the bookish, bespectacled old guy is in the library
catacombs when the Rooskies drop the big one but he’s happy as a clam because
all he ever wanted was to be left alone to read books but then he knocks his
glasses on the floor and steps on them?
Not funny.
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