Chinook
by George Hosier II  - June 30, 2008

Middle Age

I underwent my forty-second birthday in June. I’m still working through the grieving process. Birthdays have turned into harrowing ordeals ever since I turned forty. I remember when they used to be festive celebrations. My mother would still be scrubbing cake frosting out of the carpet and picking up piñata fragments when I begin whining, “I can’t wait ‘til my next birthday!” Nowadays, however, my birthday parties are muted, embarrassed affairs. My wife or son will sidle up to me and awkwardly press a birthday card into my palm as if it were a breath mint that I badly needed. “Happy…you know…’B-word’.” they murmur, and then wince as if expecting me to slap their mouth.

I can’t eat birthday cakes any more. The sugar in the frosting gives me a hyperglycemic reaction, the smoke from the candles exacerbates my facial eczema, the chocolate stokes my GERD and I am lactose intolerant of the ice cream. A couple years ago, my wife thought she had found the solution. She got an idea from a baby shower she attended where somebody made the “most darling” simulated cake out of disposable diapers. So for my next birthday, as everyone shouted “Surprise!” my wife walked into the room carrying a cake she had made out of Depends. I think she frosted it with Preparation H. The guests really enjoyed themselves that year.

I used to identify my age by my next scheduled birthday. “I’m almost six!” “I’m going on 14.” “I’ll be 21 next summer.” Now I give vague, noncommittal answers when someone asks my age. “Hmmm, what am I exactly, honey? Thirty-seven? Thirty-eight? I can’t keep track.”

I’ve noticed that I’m starting to have trouble keeping track of a lot of things lately. I used to have a mind like a steel trap. I didn’t need a daily planner. My brain was my appointment book. Now I have a mind like a steel sieve. Sometimes my wife has to remind me to breathe. I’ll find myself standing in the middle of a room with no idea how I got there, or what I am supposed to be doing. When somebody sees me like that, they snap off a quip about me being “lost in thought”. I play along, but they are attributing to me a far more noble pursuit than reality warrants. The fact is, that when I am standing there like that with a glassy look in my eye, I’m usually trying to remember my name.

I’ve noticed some other unsettling details about myself too. For instance, I appear to have developed the disease known as “Cabinetmaker’s Syndrome”. That’s where my chest has migrated to my drawers. But that’s not the only part of my anatomy that has migrated. My hair seems to be migrating too.

When I was getting a haircut just prior to my wedding, the female hair care technician kept grumbling about how unfair it was that I had such a thick pelt on top of my head. She told me that most women would kill for a head of hair like I had. It made me nervous the way she kept eying the decorative Sioux tomahawk that hung displayed on the wall of her Salon.

Recently, however, it seems that the barber takes great delight in loudly pointing out that my hairline is receding and I am losing quite a bit on top. What he doesn’t know it that I’m not losing hair at all. If anything I am gaining hair. It’s just migrating. A majority of my hairs have become snowbirds, moving away from the northern latitudes of my skull to take up residence closer to the equator. My nostrils and ears are now the equivalent of a high density Florida retirement community for hairs. At last count I had up to 423 hairs packed into a single follicle.

Those who know me personally think I wear a moustache. Actually, I can’t grow a moustache worth anything. Those are just nose hairs that I have combed down over my upper lip. I used to try to keep them trimmed. I even bought an electric-powered nose hair trimmer. It has a little round head you’re supposed to insert in your nostril and roto-root around until you can breathe again. Well, that might work for adolescents with an occasional unsightly nose hair, but not for me. My nose hairs are like a bramble patch.

I fired up that little gizmo, inserted it in my nose, and nearly passed out! Have you ever been using a power drill, when the bit caught on a knot or a nail or something and stopped turning? I’ve known construction workers that have broken their wrist as the bit stopped, but the drill itself continued to spin violently. Now imagine that instead of a drill, it is a nasal roto-rooter. And imagine that instead of a knot or a nail, the power head has become snarled in a thick patch of wiry nose-hairs--hairs that are, mind you, firmly attached to the most sensitive nerve endings in your entire body!

When I was able to stop screaming, I examined myself in the mirror. My nostril was inside out with the nose hairs tangled tightly around the trimmer head like carpet strands on a vacuum cleaner’s roller brush. I was medevaced to Seattle where a specialist performed a life-saving Norelco-ectomy. Then I was transferred to another specialist for emergency repair of my prolapsed nostril lining and perforated septum.

I’ve noticed that the dynamics of important relationships in my life are shifting too. Take my son for instance. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but we can’t seem to relate to each other like we used to. It seems like just the other day I could make him break out in a fit of giggles by performing a variety of antics. He especially liked to hear me talk like Donald Duck. He’d beg me talk like that until my jaw muscles were paralyzed from exhaustion.

Last week, however, something disturbing happened as he was heading for the door to hang out with some of his teenage friends. They were all laughing and talking as if they were having fun. Eager to contribute to their enjoyment of the evening, I put my arm around my son’s shoulder, and chimed in with that endearing squawk. “Quack, Quack!”

Everybody froze. In the sudden eerie silence, the impact of a dandruff flake hitting the floor would have been audible. Nobody giggled. My son rolled his eyes. Clearly my comic routine had encountered a tough audience. I decided to ramp it up a notch. “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!” I squawked. “Are you guys gonna have fun or what, huh?”

My son carefully removed my arm from his shoulder. An attractive girl coughed. “Soooo, are you ready to go, Martin?”

He didn’t need to be asked twice. En masse, the pack of teenagers sprinted out the door. I flapped my arms like wings and wagged my tail end as a waddled after them. “Be a good boy, Munchkin.” I quacked to Martin.

The attractive girl giggled. That was encouraging. I was beginning to worry that I had lost my touch. She whispered something to my son from behind the back of her hand. “You’re Dad is so...” I couldn’t make out the last word, but I’m sure it was “funny”. However it may have been something else, such as “charming” or “cool” or even “hot”.

My son turned toward me. His face was beet red. Clearly, he was now fighting to restrain his own giggles. I delivered the punch line in the drollest Donald Duck voice I could muster. “Don’t forget to use your asthma inhaler! And call me if you’re going to be out later than 10.”

Not very long ago, my son would have squealed in mirth, waving his pacifier while the drool ran down onto his bib. Now, to my utter shock, he hissed, “Dad, please! Not in front of my friends. Could you just go away now?”

“Aw, phooey!” I squawked desultorily. As I turned to waddle toward the house, I was devastated. For a minute it seemed apparent that my little boy was upset with me and I couldn’t understand why. He had always found my routine to be hilarious before!

But then relief washed over me, for as I closed the door behind me I heard an explosion of laughter. I rushed to the window to witness my triumph. Sure enough, everyone was whooping with laughter. Everyone, that is, except my son. He was still doing a masterful job of holding in his giggles, even though his face was now bright purple from the effort. The girls were nearly doubled over as wave after wave of laughter pealed from deep within. The guys, clearly awed by my skill, were clumsily attempting to imitate me. They had even adopted my Donald Duck gait as they waddled in circles around my son in celebration of my performance.

Perhaps I should have gotten a premonition that things were changing between my son and I the last time he asked me to arm-wrestle him. I had always playfully held my arm upright while he valiantly strained with both arms to budge it. After watching him struggle for several minutes I would ask nonchalantly, “Tell me when you’re ready to start!” It was great stuff.

This time, I held my arm upright as usual, but only because his arm wouldn’t budge. For some reason, sweat began to form on my forehead. “It feels like your Mother turned the thermostat up again.” I muttered in explanation.

Martin was grinning at me. “It feels cool to me. Tell me when you’re ready to start.”

I didn’t want to show him up, so I remembered that I have been experiencing joint pain lately. I told him that I had better stop. Not because the excruciating pain bothered me, but the doctor had advised me to take it easy on my trick elbow. Perhaps I should have arm-wrestled him anyway. The embarrassment might have distracted my mind from the tragic memory of my recent birthday.
 

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