Category Archives: Humorous Column

Jackie Wells-Fauth

I have always loved shopping for Christmas presents. Even with all my complaints about having to shop online, I still love accumulating that little pile of loot, ready to distribute to family and friends.

Except the longer I look at it and the more the pile grows, the more I begin to dread it. Not the gifts, just the next step: wrapping all those things. Because as much as I love shopping for the perfect gifts or making things I know they will love, I hate wrapping them!

I usually end up playing the “ignore” game. First, I pass by the small stack of things on the table. After a time, I move the growing heap to a spot on the floor. When Roy kicks the bigger things across the room, he usually inquires, “Time to wrap the presents, is it?”

The message is not subtle: he wants the gifts wrapped under the tree, but unfortunately, he is actually worse at wrapping them than I am. I once caught him leaving the house with a gift for his father, tied up in a ratty looking grocery bag.

“What is that?” I said, thinking that I already knew.

“It’s Dad’s gift; it was hard to wrap, and I didn’t find any of those gift bag things, so this will work,” was his answer.

“Couldn’t you at least have put on a name tag and a bow or something?” I wondered how to get it away from him to properly wrap.

“I couldn’t make a bow stick,” he said, holding it well out of my reach. “And it doesn’t need a name tag. He’ll know it’s from me.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I murmured as we left for the Christmas celebration.

As much as I don’t admire the way he wraps things, he is equally unflattering in his observations on my work. My wrapped gifts generally look like they have been viciously attacked by a drunken Christmas monster and they lost!

“Where are the scissors?” I exclaim, pulling out my hair as I search out the location of the scissors. “I swear, they walk away. Roy, can you go get me another pair of scissors?”

“Okay,” he says helpfully, “but that was the fourth and final pair out of the sewing stand. You’re going to have to make do with the kitchen shears.”

“That’s fine,” I agree eagerly, “if they can cut up a chicken, they should be able to cut this thin Christmas wrap.”

Roy brought me the shears and stood and watched me estimating where to cut and then shoving those oversized scissors into the very thin paper.

“Why are you cutting it?” he finally asked. “You could do as neatly as that if you chewed it.”

“I’m not going to chew the paper apart!” I was indignant. “How could you think that?”

“Because that’s what everyone else is going to think when they see the drunken edges on their gifts,” Having delivered his opinion, he left me in peace to ruin my gifts as I wished.

I lost the tape about 15 times, cut every piece of paper either too small, so I had to piece in extra to at least cover what was in it; or I cut it too large, and having no wish to try and chew off the excess paper, I simply wadded it up and tacked it down with extra tape—when I could find it.

In my family, my younger daughter Tracie is the one who got the neat wrapping gene. She is able to eye and cut (with reasonable scissors) a piece of paper that fits the gift exactly. She neatly folds the ends (also the right size) and uses the exact amount of tape needed to hold it in place. Watching her do this always makes me wonder if they somehow switched her with my actual daughter at the hospital and as she is untwisting, untaping and unwrapping the paper which goes three times around the gift, I know she wonders the same thing.

Well, another year is winding down and so I have taken the plunge and managed to wrap all the gifts and only one of them ended up in a garbage bag—but I put a bow on it. I’ll spend the next year rounding up all the scissors I lost and the tape dispensers that disappeared, and I will breathe a sigh of relief: for better or worse, “that’s a wrap.”

Jackie Wells-Fauth

Given the snow this week, I bet it’s no shock to anyone that I decided to write about shoveling snow! Anyone who tells you that they enjoy shoveling snow should be watched carefully and probably placed under medical treatment!

I have always loved that piece written about the woman from the South who was looking so forward to enjoying snow for the first time. With each entry, she graduates from childlike excitement to some frustration to realizing that the city snowplows hate her. She finally descends to cursing as yet another snow falls and at this point, I can relate to this woman.

Snow removal has always kind of been Roy’s thing. Especially when a few years ago I developed legitimate health issues. Before that, I did try to help, but usually, he got tired of my whining about my legs, my back, my cold face, etc., and would tell me to leave and he would figure it out.

I still do what I can. It’s easy to shovel steps and the back deck because I can just set the shovel on the snowy surface and push, until it falls off the edge. It makes for some funny snow trails, however, and I admit I don’t always clean those up as well as I could.

It’s a terrible shame, then, that I married a snow shoveling perfectionist. When he is done shoveling the driveway, it is pristine. You don’t find snow lines and every inch of the concrete drive is cleaned of snow. Even so, he will grab the big push broom each time he is out there and do some more sweeping, carving the edges so no snow dribbles back in the path.

You can imagine, then, his reaction when I am done casually pushing the majority of the snow off the steps or the deck. I am somewhat cranky about any criticism of my work, and he has learned over the years to be subtle in his comments. Still, I can feel the  desperation in his attitude when he looks out at the deck and sees all the snow trails. I am so proud that I have done the work, so he does not dare say anything negative.

“I took care of the back steps and the deck;” I announce proudly when he walks in the door. “No need for you to do anything there,” and as he heads for the back deck, “No, really, don’t you dare do anything more.”

“I assume that it must have snowed again after you were done?” he asks, continuing to inspect at a safe distance.

“No! Why would you think that?”

“Well, the middle of the deck isn’t too bad, but it must have snowed under the porch swing and the grill,” he is a little more cautious now.

“It’s all right. I consulted with the porch swing and the grill and they agreed that I could leave the snow under there because we weren’t planning any picnics in the next few months,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Okay, well, I appreciate your help. Those snow trails down the middle of the deck will melt in the sun and make great ice trails. I always think walking on the deck should be an adventure.”

“I double-dog dare you to go out there and straighten that out,” I threatened, “cause I still have a snow shovel and I know how to use it.”

“All evidence to the contrary,” he answered dryly as he walked away.

No more was said about the snow shoveling for the rest of the day. I watched him carefully, but he is pretty crafty. Late in the afternoon, when I looked out the kitchen window, the snow trails were gone.

“Nice shoveling clean-up,” I said rather bitterly.

“What, me? I would never go out and clean up after the fine shoveling job you did. I can’t imagine who could have done that. Darn neighbors. What’s for supper?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Maybe you should check with the neighbors.”

Jackie Wells-Fauth

When I started school back in the Stone Age, we studied everything in inches, pounds, and miles and we received all of our temperatures in Fahrenheit. Except for the fact that I took forever to learn how to spell Fahrenheit (and I still don’t do so well), I was satisfied with that system.

Not so, the rest of the world. All of these countries, completely ignoring my pain, went ahead and put up kilometer signs instead of miles, measured weight in kilograms instead of pounds and worst of all, measured temperature in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. And the United States looked on at that, and thought, “What a great idea.”

During the presidency of Jimmy Carter, I think, I began to hear about going to the metric system. We were to join the rest of the world and learn the metric system. Except teaching me the metric system after I had already painstakingly learned another measuring system, was about like trying to teach me French, when my mind was welded to English! It was just too hard for me.

Eventually, I think the powers that be looked at us all, drowning in kilograms and meters and centimeters, and decided the struggle was too difficult. Plus, we would have had to change all those roads signs and make all new rulers and that was just too difficult. Once the school stopped haranguing me to come up with the distance between my house and the school in kilometers (I said that I could not answer that question because I didn’t know French—that got me a zero) I pretty much let go of that system.

Then, I went to Canada and then Europe and guess what? In addition to the fact that they don’t measure in miles or tell temperature in Fahrenheit, they have different money as well! So, while I was estimating how much time (measured the same, thank goodness) it would take to get anywhere in kilometers, and just how warmly I should dress in Celsius, I was also trying to figure out money, the value of which was (forgive the term)  “foreign” to me!

“Where is the train station from here?” I could ask in English, because the Germans have done a much better job learning English than I have German. That’s where the similarity might end.

“It’s just about two kilometers right down that way,” comes the very polite answer from a fine German gentleman.

“And how much is that in miles?” is my next question.

After a rather funny look, he answered, “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that.” Imagine, he knew English, but not miles!

I finally got to the train station and the first thing I needed desperately was a bathroom. “Oh, they have them on the trains,” offered a friendly woman, “although they are a little small, not more than a few centimeters.”

I had no idea what that would look like, so I went in search of a public bathroom in the station, hoping it would be big enough. I found the bathroom, guarded by the attendant who is put there to collect the fee charged in most bathrooms.

“I don’t know how much I have,” I said, holding out a bunch of coins like a blind person. “Just take what you need and let me through!”

Changes in measure have followed us back to the United States. While I can still get a thermometer measuring in Fahrenheit, it almost always offers in Celsius as well. So, sure enough, the first thing I did was somehow change it to Celsius. And, given my skills with technological devices, I have not been able to change it back.

 Now, when I need to take my temperature, I must drag my fevered body to my computer, with the thermometer in my mouth and type in: Google, how much is 37.5 Celsius in Fahrenheit?  Someday, I know Google is going to answer, “Perhaps you should learn Celsius or just die!”

When I go to the medical offices, they weigh you with the metric system and I actually kind of like that. If I look at the scale and it’s in kilograms, I have no real idea what I really weigh. In pounds, I’d have to take it seriously and do something about it. I think it might be even better if we measured it in the British fashion. How much do you weigh if you are “12 stone” anyway?

I realize that I have devoted this column to my ignorance of the metric system, but honestly, I don’t think I’m unique in this. Ever since Mr. Carter got the idea to teach us all the metric system, I have been struggling, but I’m fairly certain I’m not alone in that struggle.

So, somebody help me out: I think I have a fever and I just took my temperature. How much is 38.1 Celsius in Fahrenheit?

Little Sure Shot Sure Shocked ‘em

Jackie Wells-Fauth

I have read, for many years and with great interest, the expression, “the weaker sex,” when talking about women. As a member of the weaker sex, I frequently laugh myself sick while I drag around heavy, wet baskets of laundry or giant mounds of garbage or wheelbarrows full of dirt. Being the weaker sex means I shouldn’t have to do that kind of thing, right?

Oh wait, I forgot, all those types of jobs are also considered “women’s work.” There is another phrase that really eludes me. What exactly is women’s work and how did women, who go through the rigors of childbirth and hold entire households together, become known as the weaker sex? Hold the door for me? How about you lug heavy rugs to the deck to be cleaned or juggle three children, the evening meal after working outside the home all day and a couple of hours of homework wrangling.  Then, I will be glad to open the door myself, thank you!

I was having all of these bitter, gender-war thoughts when I came across a picture of Annie Oakley this week. Maybe you remember Annie Oakley, the young woman who was an expert shot with a gun and who traveled for many years with Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show. “Little Sure Shot,” they called her and I’m convinced that half of her appeal was that she was a woman—and since the weaker sex are not expected to be good at shooting, her ability to drill a dime in mid-air with a bullet made her an aberration worth watching.

Of course, women participating in the Wild West Show would be expected to ride out with the rest of the performers on a horse. The rest of the group, men in cowboy attire, would be astride their horses, one foot in each stirrup on either side of the horse. Not so for the “weaker sex.” Annie Oakley, as befitted the delicate gender, rode on a contraption called a “side-saddle”. Historians can explain all the many reasons for assigning women to ride the side-saddle, but if you’ve ever seen one or ridden on one, you know that there is nothing “weaker” about anyone who can hang on, draped as they would be in long skirts and clinging to one side of the horse!

I got to try out one of these things (not on a horse, of course) which was set up in a museum and the signs invited you to try and mount and sit on the saddle. It also mentioned that you should attempt to imagine sitting on that saddle on a moving horse. I was wearing jeans and I was a few years younger than I am now, and I could not mount and stay upright even with that saddle immobile on a sawhorse. I can’t imagine trying to sit on the side-saddle strapped to a horse.

That brings me to the picture of Little Sure Shot. Annie Oakley wasn’t just riding a horse with long, draping skirts and a side-saddle, the picture captured her as she reared the horse up on two legs. Now, maybe, after the photo was taken, she slid off the saddle and ended in the mud, but that picture made me so proud of her—proving that even with all of a woman’s restrictions, she could live in a man’s world. I didn’t see any of the men in the Wild West Show doing that!

In the same group of pictures was a photo of Belle Starr, also seated on a horse, riding side-saddle. That one just made me laugh. Belle Starr, if you remember, was known in the Old West as “the Bandit Queen.” She was an outlaw with the best of them. In the picture, she is both wearing guns and carrying them, but still, there she was, on a side saddle. I can understand; if she had ridden astride, people might have thought she wasn’t a lady!

Annie Oakley apparently lamented the fact that she was considered a “trick shot” because, as a woman, she wasn’t expected to be a good marksman. I see her point and I see that she was far ahead of her time in her outlook and abilities. So thank you, for setting the pace for all the girls coming after you and proving that the “weaker sex” isn’t so weak, after all!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

Right now, everyone’s celebrating the holiday. That one we squeeze in between trick-or-treating and Christmas. This is the one where we give ourselves permission to stuff ourselves and then sit around afterward discussing key issues like, what’s for sale already for Black Friday and whether it’s okay to have the Christmas tree up while the Pilgrim statues are still decorating the mantle.

People may not realize it, but Thanksgiving is actually a very divisive holiday. It’s divided between those who can cook and those who believe that God invented TV dinners for a reason. It is on Thanksgiving that we separate the chefs from those of us who made a last-minute dash to the store for two-day old buns and a can of black olives to take to the annual event.

The day will come, I know, when I will not be able to accept someone’s generous invitation to Thanksgiving dinner, but I am not looking forward to that day because that is when I will sink irrevocably into that world where you “microwave on high for four minutes, stopping halfway through to stir the potatoes and turkey—separately.”

It’s not that no one tried to teach me to cook. But you have to have two things to learn to cook: a certain amount of aptitude and a great deal of willingness to do it—itude. I believe that from the start, I did not possess either. I would be content with a piece of toast and a fried egg for every meal…if only I could fry an egg. It’s sad, but when Roy wants a fried egg, he makes it himself, knowing that’s the only way it will not come out burned and slightly scrambled.

But back to Thanksgiving. You may think, as some do who have tried to encourage me, that I just don’t apply myself. But the truth is, I am highly intimidated by some of the cooks around me. And…yes, I don’t apply myself, either.

“Try some of the cranberry-apple resole, I made with fresh cranberries,” someone will say.

Fresh cranberries? I get my cranberries jellied in a can as nature intended. And I’m not trying anything whose name doesn’t appear in Webster’s standard dictionary. So, I missed out on the cranberry-apple thingy, but at least I kept my dignity, right?

As for stuffing, aside from the fact that I object to that much bread in one single sitting, I have a great deal of trouble with how it’s prepared. No, I do not wish to sample your great aunt Bessie’s stuffing, when it has to be shoveled out of a turkey’s butt to be served! And that is not just me being bitter because I can’t make a stuffing that anyone will eat, regardless of where it reposed during baking!

Obviously, the fact that I have failed this Thanksgiving test a great many times, causes people who do invite me for a meal to be less than enthusiastic for me to bring anything.

“I could bring a pumpkin pie,” I will offer, half-heartedly.

“Oh my, no,” the hostess will stammer, “I’d hate to have you go to that bother.”

“Are you sure? I think they are on sale at Kessler’s. Would be no trouble to go pick one up.”

Even if I’m bringing it from the store, most hostesses will turn it down. That’s fine, it saves me the trouble of shopping and it saves them the worry that I’ll take some wild notion in my head and make it myself. I have nightmares about making dinner rolls that turn out to be rocks or a macaroni salad loaded with mayonnaise-covered mystery lumps, and usually that’s enough to get me out of the notion of actually cooking.

So, I will continue to view Thanksgiving as the ultimate cooking test that I have failed and I will count myself on the side of those who are always asked to bring some paper cups or napkins but never Grandma’s homemade fudge! While it is a divisive thing, I think we will all survive it, especially after a good meal. And rest assured that my lack of cooking skills will continue to horrify others and be perfectly okay with me!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

I’m the first one to admit that my household is a little disorganized. I have often thought it would be better if I hired someone to clean and organize it regularly, but I’m afraid a professional would take one look at the blankets and throws all over the living room and yarn scraps from sewing projects throughout the house and run screaming into the night.

And so, I go on, year after year, wallowing in my disorganization and losing things right and left because of it. Or at least, that’s what I always believed. I figured that some higher power just liked messing with my mind, and rearranged things throughout the house. That explains the loss of things like scissors and ink pens.

I have a project that needs gold-colored yarn and I cannot find any in the house. So, I buy some and then, of course, the higher power places the missing yarn someplace quite ordinary, like the plate cupboard, or the freezer.

I have tolerated this circumstance because everyone assures me they have the same problems. Needles go missing, socks constantly lose their mates and finding a hairbrush is frequently so difficult, I have learned to comb my hair with my fingers and I have convinced myself that it looks just as good!

Everything was fine until the knives. Now, I have lost many pairs of scissors. It seems when I need a pair of scissors, there is never any around. I end up using a small knife or just as often my teeth. I can accept that scissors pack up and move out of the house, but now my knives have gotten into the act.

I bought a couple of knives a while ago that were really quite expensive because I was tired of the knives that cut so poorly I could chew it better and  more smoothly. Those two knives were great and I used them for everything. Then, one by one, they silently disappeared into the night. Frustrated by bread that got mashed and meat that wouldn’t slice, I got a couple more knives, not so expensive, but at least temporarily sharp. They, too, disappeared into knife oblivion.

All the dull knives have remained and they are only good for causing cuts on my fingers as I sort through the drawer, looking for knives which can do anything besides cut me! I was debating about whether I should be shopping once again, for knives that can do kitchen work, when I happened to overhear a program on television that made me stop and think.

It was while I was in the living room, digging carefully through the furniture looking for both my scissors and my missing needles, that I overheard a man describing his experience with what he termed to be ghosts.

“My knives slowly started disappearing. No one seemed to know where they went,” he drawled. He had my attention.

“Before I knew it, all the sharp knives in the house and some scissors and a bunch of large needles had mysteriously vanished. I looked everywhere, I asked every one and no one could answer the question of where they went.”

By now, I was sitting in a chair, hanging on his every word. What happened? “Did you ever solve the mystery?” the interviewer asked.

“One night, I woke up in the middle of the night and I was pinned to the bed with my sheet, which had every sharp utensil that had disappeared in the last year holding the sheet to the bed all around me. Those ghosts were sending me a message and I left that house quickly.”

What? Ghosts were collecting all the sharp objects? Did that mean I was going wake up some night looking like the knife act in a circus show? I told my husband the whole story.

“Well, it seems more likely to me that he should check out his wife,” was his reply. “Besides, I have problems of my own. I can’t find my hatchet anywhere.”

Okay, that’s it. I’m packing up and moving out until that ax reappears…someplace other than in my bed!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

Things have apparently become desperate for the deer population. This week, a member of that species checked into the city drug store by way of an unscheduled dash through a plate glass window. Didn’t do the window or the store a lot of good and I don’t think the deer really enjoyed itself either.

I don’t think the deer said why he was there, but one can draw the conclusion that, with all the hunters in town, he was probably after some tranquilizers for his nerves. In any case, by the time he had crashed in through one window, checked out the merchandize in the store (maybe he was Christmas shopping?) and crashed out through a second window, he was probably in need of medication of some kind!

Deer infiltration is a pretty common occurrence for those of us who live in South Dakota, and once in a while, they will take a stroll down city streets where they almost always come to grief or cause it, anyway. Whether it’s a foray through someone’s garden, hoofprints through the flower beds or a walk on the wild side of a road, they are always with us.

I don’t need to tell any of you, either, about the rigors of driving down a road in the gloaming, searching for a deer, well-blended with the scenery and unwise enough to play “chicken” (if you’ll forgive the term) with the motorized monsters on the road.

Imagine, if you will, a gathering of deer in the ditch, observing the lights of oncoming traffic. Merwyn, the lead deer, is gauging speed and distance before he decides on a plan of action.

“Now, I’d watch it, there, Merwyn, that car is coming fast. Don’t get cocky,” says his brother.

“Yes, Merwyn,” his wife chimes in. “You be careful on that road; you’re not as young as you used to be, you know.” She screws up her face unhappily as she sees him standing, debating. “Remember, if you try it, the children will all think they should too,”

“I have been dodging these things for years, Mildred,” he counters. “There’s an art to it. I know just when to…”

And away goes Merwyn and the next thing anyone knows, Mildred is holding a roadside memorial over the moldering remains of the unwise Merwyn. Meanwhile, the driver of the car is being told it’ll cost $6,000 to remove the Merwyn-shaped dent from his vehicle.

In South Dakota, a deer dead on the side of the road because it lost a game of Russian Roulette is almost cliché. No one mourns the death, just the damage. But, in some of my travels, I have encountered places where they treat the deer like a precious, endangered species. A sign in Florida said, “Have a care for our deer friends.” That is not a problem—I don’t have any deer friends, and I only care for my property!

They might not think they are so precious if they have my experience. Their “deer friends” have caused two of my car doors to spring when they ran into them, one hood to need replacing after a deer did a handspring roll over it and a few side mirrors have disappeared because deer paused to check their hair as my car passed.

While cars are the biggest target, this week’s shopping spree on Main Street is proof that nothing is sacred. Deer tend to make themselves at home, no matter the inconvenience to us and the danger to them.

Still, it might be that we don’t have it as tough as we might have. My aunt still wins first prize in the wild times with wild life as she tells the story of living in the mountains and opening the patio curtains, thinking the dog was outside. Instead, a full-sized bear stood on its hind legs and pounded a rhythm on the glass.

She wins the wildlife stories, but a deer through a plate glass window is a close second. Nice going, Merwyn’s brother, I hope you didn’t cut yourself—or maybe I do!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. I was feeling pretty miserable with an ugly cold and then Roy made it so much worse.

“I want to check myself for Covid,” he said, holding his head and laying back in the chair. That got my attention. When Roy feels so bad, he wants to undergo actual tests, that’s quite a thing. I wasn’t worried, though. After all, Covid is long past—right?

I kept hoping he would test negative—but he didn’t. And so, that meant that I had to test and of course, I also had Covid. Talk about regressing immediately into the past a few years! (Where DID I put those masks????)

The worst part for me is calling the people I have been in contact with to let them know I exposed them. It’s always an awkward conversation. It’s not like we’re used to giving people heads up on our health issues. “Yeah, I just thought I’d call and tell you I have the diarrhea and an uncomfortable rash right where I can’t scratch it.” But with Covid, we feel an obligation to let them know what’s coming.

Luckily, we were not greatly inconvenienced or made too ill by this round of the disease, but it was a subtle (or not-so-subtle) reminder that the pandemic, much as we want it to be, isn’t quite over. We were forced to confront the harsh truth that life will probably never go back to pre-pandemic proportions.

Before Covid, I never really noticed if someone was coughing. They could cough up a lung and I would not react. Now, if someone clears their throat, I want to put on a full haz-mat suit and drench myself in Purell.

We have stopped regarding the handshake as a form of greeting and begun to see it as a hostile attack. Before Covid, we laughed at the germophobic detective Monk, seeing his exaggerated fear of human contact as something ridiculous. Since the pandemic, it’s difficult not to look upon him as the prophetic poster child for fighting disease!

As a student of history (and long before the pandemic hit) I read with fascination the accounts of the Spanish flu epidemic which hit in the early 20^th century. I sneered a little at these people who couldn’t find a way to control the spread of a simple disease.

 After Covid entered our lives, I began to understand the problem. I listened with great interest to the lady who got on television and read a list of “suggestions” for how to avoid the spread. One of the suggestions was to avoid putting your hands near your eyes, nose or mouth. Then, she promptly licked her finger to turn to the next page of her notes! Okay, maybe I understand better now.

Before the pandemic struck, it would not have occurred to me to get up in the morning and go to work by staying in my house. Terms like lockdown referred to prison riots or airport security. Since Covid rolled over us, most people got the opportunity to scramble through their homes, eating breakfast at a dining room table that was turned into a glorified office. Before Covid, I would have thought “working at home” meant stuffing envelopes or doing hand sewing. But now, people are still frequently working at home offices, using a computer to do business and the joke about holding a meeting in your suit jacket and Santa pajama pants has become old.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this…just a line of thoughts on how one single but deadly infection could so change our lives and outlooks. We live in a world where infection from colds and flu was carelessly spread for all of my youth and adult life. When I went to college, they didn’t cover the complexities of teaching a classroom full of students with all of us masked like we’re robbing a bank. “You gave the right answer. Which one of you said it?” Likewise, I never took a health class where they taught you a song by the singer Lizzo to help you wash your hands long enough to get them germ free…My hands are cleaner, but I discovered that I’ll never be much of a singer!

I learned so much about the difference between pre-Covid times and the post-pandemic world, but what I apparently didn’t learn well enough was that despite all the wonderful things the medical community and everyone else have done, Covid is still out there—maybe not as predominant as before, but definitely still visiting me when I let down my guard. Cough carefully everyone, and make sure you wash those hands for 20 seconds!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

“If you know the extension of the person you wish to speak to, dial that now,” came the automated voice over the phone.

“I don’t know who I need to speak to, I just need a person,” I replied, still not getting that I was talking to a phone robot and one who didn’t really care about my problems.

“In a few words, state what you need from our facility,” was the next instruction.

“I NEED TO TALK TO A PERSON,” I don’t know why I was shouting; it was not so much because I was angry; just because somehow I thought the robo voice would respond better. I was nervous; give me a break.

“Please state, in a few words, what you wish to speak to our people about,” was the repeated instruction, and because even a robo voice knew they were dealing with the simple-minded, they went on, “For example, do you want to update an account, open a new account, have billing questions…”

“I want to talk to a person about my account,” I shouted; by now I was convinced that I was not going to be talking to a human being anytime soon.

“We apologize for any inconvenience, but there is no one who can assist you at this time,” the robo voice intoned without a hint of apology. “We recommend that you visit our website or call our 1-800 number.” The next thing I heard was dial tone.

This is not a new event. The advantage to living in a small town has always been that I could walk in the front door of the business and talk to real, live people who give every indication of being willing to help me with whatever the problem is. So I guess I’ve been spoiled.

Any business that must be done long distance—and that happens a lot—leaves us at the mercy of an automated phone system which doesn’t care if their bad attitude and limited responses make us mad.

As an older American, I am less than comfortable with the technological advances that spring up almost hourly around us. I have already stated that my children are much better at figuring out technology than I am, but this is of no concern to the companies who rely more and more on the robo voiced phone receptions which handle the high volume of calls. The older the American, the more likely that these phone experiences don’t go well.

The website visit for me is always just as useless as my conversation with the automated voice. “Click on the box at the left side of the screen for a list of options.” I followed these instructions. None of the options took me to a place where I could get information for my account.

“We have a different address than the one you gave,” is the message which comes up when I try to identify myself. This is a problem: I’ve only had one address for the last 30 years. That might explain everything—I’ve been living under a false identity at a false address, no wonder I can’t get a response to my problems!

In the end, I called the 1-800 number. After answering a long series of questions and responding to a special code that they sent and I repeated back to them, I finally got to speak to an ACTUAL PERSON! Judging by her voice, she was somewhere in the south, but when we finally got down to my problems, she was able to help me fix it. I was so thankful, I couldn’t tell her enough how grateful I was.

“Oh ma’am, you are so welcome,” she drawled with her honey voice. “Is there anything else I can do?”

“Yes, tell me how I can get a hold of someone at the branch of the office that is in my area. They keep hanging up on me,” I whined.

“Yes, ma’am. That’s the new automated phone system,” she explained. That much I already knew.

“When they ask what you want, just say, ‘Branch manager,’ and you will get a person in the most local office to you,” she went on to instruct me. We parted on very good terms.

Several days later, when another issue appeared, I was confident of myself. I now knew what to do. I called the most local number and waited while the robo voice greeted me and asked me to state in a few words what I wanted.

“Branch manager,” I enunciated proudly.

“We apologize for any inconvenience, but there is no one who can assist you at this time,” intoned the robo voice. My reply was highly emotional and slightly profane. But by then I was speaking to dial tone.

Jackie Wells-Fauth

When I was in my early 40s, I remember trying to pick something up and having a twinge somewhere in my back and thinking jokingly, “Oh, look at me, I’m getting old.”

Nowadays, I only have to bend over or move sideways–without picking anything up–and I’m reminded seriously of that bumper sticker which says, “I thought growing older would take longer.” It is a sad truth that I no longer joke about getting older and every day I am reminded more vividly that I am getting so very much older. And far from taking longer, it has all happened in the blink of an eye!

As our bodies begin to age, we all begin to make concessions. We begin to deal with ourselves to keep from facing the awful truth that age, that merciless witch, has caught up with us and she did it with all the speed of a sprinter. I sit down more carefully and walk more precisely than I ever did as a young woman and still, the body persists in showing that age.

I used to walk through a grocery store picking up things aimlessly and in no particular order. Today, I stand and debate with myself about whether I could really maybe get along without milk for another week because I don’t want to walk to the back of the store to pick up the carton that I forgot to get (memory–another age-related casualty) while I was at the other end of the store.

I avoid certain clothes in my closet because they require me to twist my body to get them on in ways that age now forbids me to do. I don’t throw away the clothes, mind you, because someday I’m going to feel better and exercise my way back to all of the moves that I didn’t appreciate when I was young. And of course, I never clean the closet because my body is no longer fond of that activity, if it ever was!

I like to think that I am meticulous about keeping my kitchen floors clean—always mopped them regularly. Old age has made me watch the dog much more carefully. If she is out in the kitchen, licking the floor, I figure I can let the mopping go for another day or two. And as for moving out appliances to clean or mop beneath, well, if the dog isn’t bothered by their condition now, I see no reason I should get excited about it!

When my children were babies I dreamed of going to bed early and not having to get up in the night. That dream has never become a reality. If I go to bed too early, the old body protests against too much time in a prone position and as for not having to get up in the night, well, most of us old people will tell you that we have a night light in the bathroom and it’s not just for show!

Each morning, I get up and do an inventory of what aches, is numb from an unwise sleeping position or just plain has shifted and sends up notice that its function has now changed and it won’t be performing all those menial tasks for me anymore.

In my 20s, I threw fits because my hair was so thick I couldn’t get a comb through it. Today, I have put away all of those worries and just hope I have enough hair to cover my head. I loved high, spiky heels as a girl, believing they flattered my legs. Now, I wear heavy sneakers and comfort myself with the fact that my legs are always covered in compression socks, so no one would see them anyway!

At 35, I wrote my first column/blog about getting old. It was a complete whine about having to face the problems of encroaching age. Now, at almost 70, I would like to go back and kick that idiot 35-year-old in the butt—except I can’t get my foot up that high. And I suppose, if I live to be 100, I’ll look back on this column and laugh at what I can still do now that I won’t be able to then! It is all relative.

So it’s true, I did think growing old was going to take longer and instead, it has happened in the blink of an eye. This thought was really kind of depressing me the other day and I confided to a colleague that “I can’t believe I got old so very fast.”

He looked at me, cocked his head thoughtfully and replied, “This is all very true. It’s not that much fun getting older…but the alternative is a lot less attractive. I’ll take aging.”

And there you have it; the aging process is all in how you look at it—whether you’re 35, 50 or 80. So, I’ll try to be content with my growing age, but I still say that eye blinked pretty darn fast!