Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll points out the IMPORTANT PARTS! She writes:

When you were a very small child, if you fell and skinned your knee it was not a big deal at all. Falling was a routine part of a small child’s life. Unless you thought you could get some mileage out of it from one of your parents, you just went about your day. If I approached my Papa bawling with a skinned knee, unless there was a lot of blood or a protruding bone, he would barely look up from his paper and say, “Put some iodine on it and walk it off.”

If it looked particularly minor, he might even haul out his legendary warning, “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry ABOUT.” And I did.

Mother was a slightly softer touch, but only slightly. She was a tough South Dakota farm girl who was the clean-up hitter and catcher on the Methodist Ladies’ Softball Team. As I’ve mentioned before, she could break an apple in half with her bare hands! She might wash off the “wound,” apply a little iodine, kiss me, and THEN say, “Walk it off.”

I thank God for these parents every day who taught their girlchild not to be a baby. They not only prepared me for the rough-and-tumble world of standup comedy, which was “berry berry good to me,” but also for working nightshift in a print shop with 80 men.

The language, the jokes, the general camaraderie of that print shop immunized me completely from the poison of the newly-invented category of “microaggressions.” After those environments, it’s hard to get driven insane enough to knit wretched approximations of lady bits by the thought of a couple of grown men making a joke IN PRIVATE about incredibly rich guys being able to take liberties with women.

But back to childhood.

When you got a little older, say junior high, NOW if you fell it not only hurt more — as your bones were no longer basically rubber — but there was also the embarrassment factor. In seventh grade, in 1958, a mere 67 years ago, I was coming out of school and there was a chain about waist-high blocking off a driveway next to the school. I was wearing something with the unlikely name of “kickerinos,” a short, fur-lined boot that had a moment in the ’50s.

And a stupid thought – one of tens of thousands which have entered my brain unbidden – came to me: “I bet I could jump OVER that chain.” I took a little running start on ice, jumped, and the kickerino caught on the chain and down I went. Carrying books. And a purse.

A cute boy in my Sunday School class named Gerry happened to live next door and, as luck would have it, was in his yard. He saw me and – who could blame him? – he nearly died laughing. I feared I would either have to kill him, kill myself, or move to Canada.

But like a cat I just pretended I meant to do it like that, picked up my damp books, shook the snow out of my purse and limped the mile home. Only he and I witnessed this assault on my bones and what small sliver of dignity I possessed at age 12. Sadly, like about a third of my graduating class, he has passed away. RIP, Gerry. So, if I hadn’t mentioned it here, nobody would have ever known.

I must state for the record that I consider myself and the shape I am in at this age to be sheer luck and blessing. I have minor “issues,” but no serious disabilities, Baruch Hashem. I believe that everybody has a “weak link” physiologically. I know people with migraines, people with hips and knees replaced, people with diabetes, arthritis, macular degeneration, and of course, much worse. But this is a humor column and there’s nothing funny about the “worse” things. I inherited my weak link – a Cranky Colon (hereinafter, CC) – from Mama. She also had the ability to maintain the same weight for her entire life, which she gave to my sister instead.

This is morning coffee and breakfast time, so I will not dwell graphically on CC and beg others to be judicious as well. I will simply say that while some have either a slowed down or speeded up system, CC feels I should experience both. And each one when it would be most awkward and inconvenient. In the wise words that my walking partner, The Paranoid Texan, lives by: “It is what it is.” Sure, it’s a meaningless tautology, but if you don’t examine it too closely it can give you comfort.

It’s not for lack of trying that I have not become disabled. I have taken at least two spectacular falls, the kind that could win a prize on “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” One – carrying a large box to the UPS store so that I could not see where I was going – was a bonehead move. But the other one was just a split-second of inattention. I was up; I was walking; I looked at a dog across the street. And then I was down – flat on my face!

When you have even a minor and temporary disability, it makes you appreciate even more what a miracle your body is. In 2016 I lost a dust-up with the sliding patio door at my friends’ house (a door which I thought was open was NOT, and which turned out to be made of glass, not air…). I am extremely lucky the glass did not break!

As we have discussed before, I tore my rotator cuff. It was in my extremely valuable right arm and from the shoulder to the forearm it turned enough colors of the rainbow to be a small float in the Pride Month parade. And it hurt like blazes. Luckily, I had 3 baby aspirin for the pain. And then I had to drive from Alexandria back to my old house in Maplewood where my best friend there drove me to the airport with two weeks’ worth of luggage. FUN!

For a considerable period of time, I could not lift my arm as high as my shoulder. No biggie, right? Wrong. I could not put even the lightest garment on a hanger and affix it to the rod. I could not brush my teeth without great agony. Flossing in particular took a vacation. I could not stir a pot on the stove for over a couple of seconds without fatigue setting in.

Many people with torn rotator cuffs go to the doctor and several even have surgery. It isn’t that I don’t believe in doctors. I do. For other people. I did sign up for some Rehab. The body is an amazing healing machine. After faithfully doing the exercises for 15 weeks, I regained probably 90 percent of function. Not perfect, but probably as good as it’s going to get.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to test out an old Confucian saying that “There are two ways to grab a knife – by the handle or by the blade.” My sharpest paring knife was hiding behind many butter knives in the dish drainer and I grabbed the whole bunch to dry them and was amazed to see blood going everywhere! Joe had to get some clot-producing military-grade gauze to make it stop. Again, a big nothing…just a middle fingertip, but I have had to develop a few work-arounds for mundane tasks and the biggest risk is accidentally hitting the finger and opening the cut again, which has happened twice.

Friends, we need to learn to be grateful for our amazing bodies, size or imperfections notwithstanding. We don’t appreciate being able to read a menu until we have to hold it at arm’s length. We don’t appreciate being able to walk to the mailbox until we twist an ankle. If you want to find out if you have some unnoticed small scrapes or burns on your hands, try squeezing a lemon! (Follow me for more medical advice…)

For anyone over about 55, the watchword all day every day should be “Cuidado!” Caution! THINK before you do anything and do it slowly. Maybe best just to sit in a comfy chair with a nice afghan (the blankie, not the Taliban), a remote control with no sharp edges, and a stack of books, Sudoku, and Crossword puzzles, taking care to avoid paper cuts.

For all I know, that is what the elderly couple at the end of our block was doing when a crazy lady drove her car at about 35 mph into their living room. So you just never know. By the grace of God, nobody was hurt, not even the crazy lady. But she was invited to leave our Gated Geezer Complex and I would imagine she or a guardian has a boatload of legal troubles.