On high tops and Limitations 10/06/23

How many of us have forgotten their phones? In restaurants, bars, airplanes, taxi cabs, gas station convenience stores, and so on and so on. But some instances are more egregious than others. John was with someone (who shall go nameless to protect their identity) who left their phone on top of their car and drove away. But what made it worse is the phone was in a phone holder which also had room for multiple credit cards. When they realized their mistake they hightailed it back to the parking garage where they encountered a smashed iPhone, but miraculously, the credit cards were all there, scattered on the concrete. Point is, we all do it, even though we’re all so hopelessly dependent on those damn phones. I think the moral of the story is don’t leave your phone anywhere after you use it but back in your pocket or purse or man-bag if you carry one. And certainly don’t leave it in high, hard-to-see places.

Which brings me around to high chairs. Listen, I get it. It’s fun to sit at the bar. In fact, we have close friends who live in London, and when they go out they only like to sit at the bar. For yours truly, there’s two problems with that. For one, I am not only short, I am short-waisted. Which means my legs are proportionally longer than my torso. This sucks when attending movies and concerts, and driving certain makes of vehicles. Also sitting at high tops. But that part I can deal with. The part I absolutely hate is when my napkin invariably falls on the floor. First I stubbornly insist on trying to reach the napkin on the floor while still sitting in the chair. No can do. At least not anymore (it reminds me of a game I used to play with my son during a round of golf. It involved being able to pick up a golf ball from the rough, while in a moving golf cart. I used to be able to do it with about a 60% success rate, now, he does it. I have given up). Then, back to the high chair, I invariably excuse myself, push the chair back, climb down, pick up the napkin and resume eating, until my napkin falls again minutes later. This leads to the final indignity of tucking my napkin into my pants which just doesn’t seem dignified. Or fair.

And finally, for those of you who are wondering why I am writing an October blog in late September, it’s because I am off to Bhutan. Thanks for reading and being a fan of the New 60 and enjoy the fall weather. Just do it on a normal sized chair.

Andy and John

On Forgetting and the Holidays

This is not about forgetting the holidays. We’re not THAT old yet. It’s about forgetting and the holidays. But the first comic is about forgetting where you parked. And I’m sorry to say that one happened to yours truly. My wife and I went out to dinner with another couple who were visiting us. After dinner was a jazz concert. Because the other couple wasn’t familiar with the area, the plan was that my wife Joanie went with the other husband in his car while I took the other wife in my car. Now get your collective minds out of the gutter. Nothing happened like that except when we walked out of the restaurant, I had no idea where I had parked. As in none. This wasn’t some understandable confusion, like not being able to find your car in a mall lot, an airport or a football stadium. Everybody does that. Don’t they? I mean, even a guy like John might lose his car there. But no, this was different. I couldn’t have been more than a block away. So I walked up the hill a block, down the hill two blocks (to make up for the one block uphill), and then back up to the starting place in front of the restaurant. I turned to my companion and shrugged my shoulders, and she suggested I use my key to unlock the car and maybe we’d see the flashing headlights. I heard but didn't see so finally I hit the “panic” button on the car key and eureka, there it was, one block away on the side street. Which begs the question do they call it a panic button because they know you are panicking? I always thought it was named “panic button,” because you’d use it in a panic, like if you saw somebody about to steal your car. But now I know better. In any case, while sheepishly recounting this to John, he suggested it might be better to have forgotten that Al didn’t drive after all. He had walked to the restaurant and forgotten. I’m still not sure which story is more pathetic.

But let’s get to Christmas. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, as those annoying car commercials never tire of telling us. You know the ones. They all have these stupid, oversized red bows on top of cars. I think Lexus started it but now BMW has joined the fray. If you’ve seen the commercial once, you’ve seen it a million times. This time the red bow appears on top of the house, a wind comes and blows it on top of the BMW, whereupon the perfectly coiffed, perfectly in shape grandpa comes out of the front door and thinks his son bought the car for him. Yeah, right. I believe that. And all of this has little to do with our holiday comic, delivered to your inbox two days before Christmas. John suggested Marv for Christmas because he’s rotund and jolly just like Santa. Mark is always struggling with his weight (who isn’t?) and that naturally led to Christmas cookies, and…you know the rest because chances are, you already read the comic. So happy holidays and we will see you next week before we finally get to next year. Where does the time go??

Andy and John