The Muddled Male

Ratio Theory

 

By Bob Stevens, The Muddled Male

        We have been traveling from one enclave of grandchildren to another for the past few days, and it has caused me to ponder the issue of aging.  A little about aging in general, of course, but mostly about the aging that applies directly to me.  Ask any of us “old duffers,” as we are sometimes called, and we are quick to tell you that it was only yesterday that we were little kids playing with the same energy and abandon as our great grandchildren do now.  What happened in the interim?  How did we move so quickly from young to old?  What is it that takes us so rapidly from invincible to fragile?  Well, I have been working on a theory that my friend the math professor would say is simply a matter of ratios. 

        When I was little, like our great grandchildren, my only thought was of the moment.  Not anyone else’s moment, mind you, just my own.  That should have been easy to do since I hadn’t been around very long and the number of moments of which I was trying to keep track were few.  When I was three, however, thinking about things that happened when I was two still taxed my little brain since one year was one third of my entire life up to that moment.  At my current age, however, one third of my life is now a block of twenty-six years.  Same ratio, as my friend would be quick to explain, but a whole lot more “stuff” to sort through, especially if I happen to be reviewing the twenty-six years that contains the exciting courtship of Ann, my wife, and especially since I have a much slower processing speed now than when I was three, or when I was courting. 

        I was explaining my ratio theory to Ann, but her processing speed is also slow and she is still stuck in the middle of her lecture about my poor eating habits and why I will regret it one day.  When her frustration becomes overwhelming she always reminds me that amputation is in my diabetic future if I don’t pay more heed to her counsel.  When my frustration becomes overwhelming I respond with a reminder that if her warning becomes reality I will ask for a pair of those springy things that the blade runner used in the Olympics and I will be able to run faster than I can now……even in my old age.  Assuming that she hadn’t heard my explanation about my ratio theory, and assuming that I had finally gotten the upper hand regarding her dismay over my diet, I assumed the position of a smug husband just in time to hear her remind me that the definition for duffer is an incompetent or dull-witted person.  Maybe my ratio theory only applies to husbands.