Monthly Archives: February 2025

Jackie Wells-Fauth

When I was a child—back in the cave days—Twister was a popular game. You can still find Twister today, but whenever I see those brightly colored dots and their evil little spinning dial, I break out into a cold sweat.

Obviously, Twister brings back some very bad memories. For those who have never had the privilege, Twister is a game where you are instructed to put various appendages of the body on various colored dots on a floor mat, according to the sadistic instructions on the spinning dial. Of course, the real problem is that you have others on the same mat trying to do the same thing. Hence, the name “Twister.”

Even as a child, when I was at my most limber, I could not manage that game. “Put your left foot on a yellow dot,” came the instructions. I was, at that point, hovering over the other side of the mat (of course), like a drunken crab who had flipped clumsily over on its back. I had another person’s elbow in my eye and a knee shoved in the middle of my back (I prayed the knee wasn’t mine).

Left foot on yellow, huh? Giving a mighty heave, I picked up one foot, shoved it in someone’s mouth to get them out of my way and slapped the foot on a dot. “There,” I declared triumphantly, “left foot on yellow.”

“That’s your right foot and it’s on green,” I was quickly informed.

“Maybe I’m color-blind and I don’t know my right from my left (that at least is true, ask Roy)” I snapped back. “You should make allowances for my handicaps.”

It was at this point that the inverted crab lost all sense of balance and fell to the mat, taking everyone with me. It’s a fact that I didn’t get asked to play Twister very often and this was okay with me. The few times I did play still give me nightmares.

I know I’m taking a long time to get to my point. It is not “never play Twister.” However, I have been painfully reminded of Twister by a little experience optimistically known as “stretching exercises.” With advancing age, I have learned that exercise is more and more necessary. As a very wise physical therapist told me, “You either use it, or you lose it.”

It’s while doing some of these stretching exercises that I am unpleasantly echoing those childhood days of making myself into a pretzel. I am trying to use muscles that I wasn’t even aware that I possessed, and I have discovered that I am much too old to do the inverted crab without a great deal to drink and a long stay in the hospital!

I was attempting to do one of the more complicated feats one evening when Roy came into the room.

“What in the world are you trying to do to that broomstick?” was his obvious question.

“I’m doing an exercise for my hips,” I answered, struggling to hold the broomstick in place, “you just wrap one leg around the broomstick and twist the other way. I found this one on Facebook.”

“I suggest you put the broomstick back on the broom and stop consulting Facebook for your general exercise health,” was his recommendation. I took his advice but only because I tripped myself up on the broomstick and fell on the floor. Now, I have a few bruised muscles as well!

I keep trying, though. It’s got to be easier to touch your hand to the space between your shoulder blades, than it was to put my left foot on yellow, am I right? Except as my face gets red from the effort and my fingertips are nowhere near my shoulder blades, I begin to suspect that I’m no better at this than I was at that cursed game.

Very well, I decided to strengthen my core on my treadmill. Anyone can walk, right? However, it seemed I needed to speed it up (I heard about this on Facebook). The difference between one speed and the next was rather more than I expected and forced me to exert myself–a lot. After an eternity at the higher speed, I checked the time—I had been walking at the higher speed for exactly a minute and a half. But it was a core-strengthening minute and a half, I comforted myself.

“So, how long did you make it on your treadmill,” Roy asked as I staggered into the room.

“Oh, only 15 minutes or so,” I lied casually, while gasping for breath. “I expect I will get better as I go along.”

Or maybe I should just go back to Twister.

Jackie Wells-Fauth

It’s not a matter of getting old. Of course, I know I’m not old. I’m sure I’m not! I do all the things I can to try and salvage what is left of my body after years of neglect and I do brain teasers and crosswords and read copiously to keep up with my…what’s that term? Oh yes! My mental health, that’s what I’m keeping up!

So, as you can see, I am not old. That’s why it’s so curious (that took a minute—I had to look up how to spell that one) that so many things occur that might give a person the idea that I might just be headed around the proverbial bend from middle age into some sort of, possibly—older age; that’s the expression I’m looking for!

Where was I? Oh yes, those pesky, unpleasant little things that might be aging me. There’s not a person in the world who hasn’t walked in a room and asked herself (himself) “Why did I come in here again?” Unfortunately, I have graduated to doing it several times for the same item.

“You’ve come in here and left three times already,” Roy said one evening, “What are you doing?”

“I wish I knew,” I answered in exasperation, “I hate when that hap—MY PHONE!” I suddenly screamed, causing Roy to flinch back in shock, “I came in here to get my phone, I remember!”

“Except your phone is in the bedroom, remember? That’s where you put it,” he replied.

“I think you put it there, and you’re just trying to gaslight me,” I said as I headed for the bedroom.

“Whatever makes you feel good,” he replied.

I stomped into the bedroom and stopped abruptly at the door. “What did I come in here for?”

It’s even worse when I involve Roy in my “age-itis”. The other day, I took the refrigerator shelves apart to give them a good cleaning.

“Can you help me put them back?” I asked Roy. “It’s hard for me to reach down to the bottom shelf.” (Not because I’m old!)

I positioned the bottom shelf for him, and he struggled for five minutes, and it just wouldn’t snap into place.

“I can’t make it fit this way,” he complained, “are you sure this is how it goes in?”

“Of course it is,” I replied, “I just took it out, do you think I wouldn’t remember…oh, wait a minute.” I turned my head to look at it upside down (hard to do when you are old.) “Maybe it does go in the other way.”

He flipped the shelf around, slipped it into place and snapped it down. Then he just sat there and looked at me.

“Isn’t the refrigerator looking good? I worked hard on it this afternoon,” I said. He was not distracted.

“You’re sure it was this afternoon?”

Even the dog (Roy’s dog) has joined the chorus of reminding me how old I am. The other day, I was jamming to the 70s on the radio, really dancing up a storm. Well, as much of a storm as I can create with bad knees, cranky ankles and poor balance. But I was having fun.

I twirled around once and happened to catch a look at the dog. She was sitting quietly, watching me, judging me. She looked so sorry for me that I could almost hear her say, “Your dancing days are over, Jammin’ Jackie. Hang it up and find your cane.”

So, maybe I am older than I think, but I don’t think I’m any older than I was when I graduated from high school. I think I should still be able to remember everything I did back then. That’s why I do the brain teasers and the crosswords and read copiously. It’s so that I will always…what was my point again?

Jackie Wells-Fauth

It was the last pill in my prescription bottle and I was in a hurry to get on the road in my oh-so-busy life. I had decided I could wait until tomorrow to renew the prescription, because I still had that one pill. I took it in my hand as I headed down the steps for the car because, of course, it must be taken with food. I had decided that instead of just grabbing some toast at home to take the pill with, I would grab a doughnut on the way.

The problem was—what to do with the pill while I drove to the doughnut store? No problem; I simply laid it on the top of my coffee mug. It would be fine there on the lid of the coffee container for a few minutes. Except as soon as I took off, the pill slid through the opening in the coffee mug lid and sank to the murky bottom of the cup!

My last pill…no more for another day until I could get back and get a refill. Now what? Yes, indeed, you guessed it.  I sucked down that whole giant cup of coffee so I could get at the grainy remains of the pill at the bottom. Causing me to then need to stop in the nearest town on the road to relieve myself of the swiftly drunk coffee!

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. And it ended as all things do that I try because “it’s a good idea at the time;”  in disaster.  I was forced to lick the final granules of my final pill from the bottom of a very deep coffee mug!

I once backed my brand new husband’s fancy car into a stop sign. It seemed like a good idea at the time to keep backing up so I could see what I’d hit, thus putting a scratch all along the car and eventually flattening the stop sign. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I suspect that the only reason I remained married after that was because my husband didn’t want to go through the expense of hiring a divorce lawyer (or a defense attorney) that early in the relationship!

I could avoid these kinds of problems—large and small—if I just thought it through a little better, but I have a tendency to make snap decisions and then repent at leisure, wondering what in the world made me think that was a good idea. Of course, it always seems like a good idea at the time and it always ends up dissolved in the bottom of my coffee mug!

It is an impulse that actually runs in my family. My sister once crawled under a grainery and then couldn’t get out because, of all things, her head got stuck! I scoffed for months, wondering what made her think that was a good idea. Then, mid-summer, I ran barefoot through a mud puddle to prove that I could avoid stepping on whatever broken glass was sticking out of the center of the pool. I couldn’t. After that, I understood my sister better and I understood as I was getting a foot full of stitches that we both tended to think something was a good idea at the time when it really wasn’t!

I also plan good ideas that don’t work out that well. I have yet in my life to plan a surprise party where the surprise didn’t end up being on me. The worst was when I decided to give Roy a surprise fortieth birthday party. We were planning on quite a few people and we were going to hold it in my sister’s garage.

I spent all of two days preparing food, which wasn’t easy when Roy came home at night. I had two young girls at home and keeping them quiet was also a chore. But, up until the final afternoon, I had managed to plan a surprise party. It seemed like a good idea at the time….

I was in mid-afternoon cooking mode. I had banana, strawberries, peaches, pears and every other kind of fruit possible for a salad chopped up and spilling over the counters. I was browning mounds and mounds of hamburger for barbeques. I had chips and buns stacked on the counter ready to be stashed away before Roy got home. But I had two hours, plenty of time.

Then the dog got loose and I had to go find her. I had a major blowout with the electric fryer, so it slowed the browning of hamburger to one not too large skillet. I cut my fingers on the fruit and had to clean myself up and then pick out any blood-stained fruit. And lastly, I piled the buns in their cartons on the floor by the back door to get them out swiftly and the dog sat on one.

Before I knew it, Roy walked in the door, his mouth dropping open at the heaps of food, decorations everywhere,  the cake which had just been delivered, and me, covered in bandaids and berating the dog.

“It’s your 40^th birthday,” I snarled at him, “Surprise.”

So probably, putting a pill on top of my coffee mug and watching it slide in and dissolve, isn’t the worst idea I’ve had, it’s just the latest experience where I thought something was a good idea at the time.

Jackie Wells-Fauth

I have come to the conclusion that I am watching too much television. This is because along with the constant barrage of commercials about the latest miracle drug that will make you young again, I have become tired of what I like to call the “app” commercials.

“You no longer have to wait for payday, you can have up to $500 today!” promises the voice on the television. “Just type in a few words on this app and you, too, can be in debt forever!”

Okay, maybe they don’t say the last part, but they do make it pretty easy to get yourself in a pile of debt, especially if you can use their app!

Of course the next commercial will be one in which you can use an app to apply for help getting you out of your massive debt. As long as you have a “smart phone”, you can do just about anything.

We took a driving vacation the last two years and both times, we encountered parking lots which required you to use your cell phone to get into their app. You simply took a picture of a design on the billboard that looked like something on Star Trek. If you could make your phone do that, you got into an app which recorded your car license and payment option so that you could park in the parking lot. Gone are parking attendants;  we now have an app!

It frequently worries me what will happen if our phones fail us. These things can do everything from get you on an airplane to paying bills, to shopping for just about anything. Frequently it’s hard to remember that their stated purpose is to call people. We are a long way from the machine hanging on the wall that did nothing more than ring and connect us with one other person! Phone lines went down occasionally in the old days and we just coped. Today, a loss of our phones would stop our lives cold.

As long as everything is being done with an app, I have a few suggestions for some apps that they should add. After all, there doesn’t seem to be much that these smart phones can’t do if they have the proper app.

I would like an app that would do the cooking at my house. I don’t even want it to clean up afterwards, I just want to be able to scan some code on the stove with my phone and have the meal appear, done with much more skill than I have. I would even be willing to add some of those videos from Youtube on how to fix the perfect meal.

Laundry is another thing I’d like to see an app for. Most washing machines today are computers anyway, why couldn’t we have an app that would not only load the washer and dryer, but would also decipher all of those options on the controls. An app would be able to talk to the machine and tell it what to do far better than I can anymore! I’m being told as I write this, that there is such an app—you can actually handle the laundry while you are enjoying an evening out—paid for by an app, of course!

I was grousing about paying my bills and keeping track of expenses the other day. “Why doesn’t anyone come up with an app for that?” I asked no one in particular, but the television answered.

“Are you tired of paying for things you don’t use? Do you want to cease the worry over late fees for bills you forget to pay?”

“Yes!” I answered, forgetting that the television can’t really hold a conversation with me. “That is exactly my problem. What can I do, that doesn’t involve me doing the actual work?”

“Just try our system,” the television continued. “It will keep track of all your bills, pay things on time and get rid of anything you don’t need.”

“Sounds a little mind-controlling, but I’m desperate. Who do I call?” I say, taking out paper and pencil to write down the number.

“Just use our app for paying bills and keeping track of your subscriptions. Never pay for a thing you don’t need again. Hold your phone up to the symbol on the corner of your television screen—you know, the one that looks like a Martian is trying to make contact– and you will have our app.”

I might have known. Another app I can get to make my life “easier”. Which makes me wonder: Is there an app out there to handle all of these apps? That’s the one I really need!