God's Waiting Room: Washington, D.C.

Florida haters — there are many — sometimes refer to my adopted state as “God’s Waiting Room."

The haters are wrong. Everyone knows that God’s waiting room, the place old people actually go to die, is Washington, D.C. 

The latest (literally and figuratively): Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) who died Friday at 90. 

Left to mourn Feinstein's passing is her successor as the oldest living member of Congress, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). who is 90. He is followed in age-descending order by:

Rep Grace Napolitano (D-CA),  86

Rep. Eleanor Holmes North (D-DC), 86

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ),  86

Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), 85

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), 85

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-MA), 84

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), 83

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-CA) 83

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) VT) 83

The two senators aren’t up for re-election next year, but the eight representatives are and six of them have already announced their re-election bids. 

Fully one-third — 34 — of our 100 (99 until Feinstein’s replacement is appointed) senators are 70 or older, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), 81, who suffered aphasia on camera twice in recent weeks. Compared to the Senate, the House of Representatives is a pre-school; only 75 of its 435 members are 70 plus.

The most visible oldster in DC, of course, is 80-year-old Joe Biden. If Biden is re-elected next year, he will be 85 at the end of his term. 

Biden will in all probability be running against Donald Trump, who, if he wins, will be 82 when his term expires in 2029. 

The thought of either of these old men running the country (and I know a thing or two about old men because  I am one— I’ll be 72 in November) should scare the shit out of all Americans. Electing people past their primes to high offices — especially the presidency — is madness. Dentists, brain surgeons, professional athletes and airline pilots are expected to perform to the best of their abilities. We should expect no less from our presidents, but we can't because we keep nominating and electing candidates well past their "Best If Used By" dates. 

Many oldsters retain much of their mental or physical agility well into their eighties, but few retain both. Biden appears to be in decent physical health but his mind is obviously failing. Trump seems sharp — his speeches are as acerbic as ever — but he’s overweight and out of shape. There are probably hundreds of thousands of younger Americans, including my dachshund, who would be more effective presidents than either of them.

Article II of the Constitution stipulates that a president has to be at least 35 years old. The founders clearly assumed people younger than that don't possess enough experience and/or wisdom to steer the ship of state. While I’m sure there are 25-year-old wunderkinds who could run the country efficiently, and that some 100-year-olds could also handle the job, they would certainly be the exceptions. 

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act prohibits most employers from establishing mandatory retirement ages. Some professions, however, are exempt, including air traffic controllers, airline pilots, and public-safety workers such as police, firefighters, and correctional officers, most of whom can’t work past age 65. Military officers have to retire at 64. Many states — among them New Jersey and Minnesota — require judges to vacate the bench at 70. Miners have to put down their pickaxes at 60 and racehorse jockeys have to ride off into the sunset at 55. Some publicly-traded company CEOs have to retire once they reach specific ages — generally 70 max— and partnerships, such as law and accounting firms, can require partners to pack it in at ages each firm can decide for itself.

It is well past time for a constitutional amendment that requires elected Federal officials —senators, representatives, presidents and vice-presidents — to retire once they reach a specific TBD age. Seventy (70) seems reasonable to me. The age cap would prevent candidates within spitting distance of 70 from running in the first place. 

if you worry such an amendment seems discriminatory, look at it this way: We already prevent people who aren’t yet 35, whose best days are presumably ahead, from serving as president. So why not prevent someone twice that age, whose best days are definitely behind him/her/them, as well? If a minimum age requirement isn’t considered discrimination — it’s in the Constitution after all — a maximum age requirement wouldn’t be, either. 

And with that, I’ll wind this up because I have a lot on my plate today. For starters, I need to proofread and post this column, then I'll take the dog on a two-mile walk, go to the gym for two more miles on the treadmill and an hour of free weights, take a bridge lesson, and run to the hardware store to buy brackets so I can fix the guest room closet shelf that inexplicably collapsed this morning. Considering I'm almost 72, I have plenty of energy and am firing on all eights.
 

But first, I have to take my Metamucil. 

20 ways to tell if you're officially "old"

• While watching a streaming tv series featuring an actor you haven't seen recently, you can’t believe how old and decrepit he looks. Good grief, he’s your age or only a few years older, he should look better than that! You look him up on Wikipedia and learn he’s 14 years younger than you.

• Your niece just became a grandmother.

• You were always amused by friends who took sweaters to restaurants complaining the A/C was too cold, but now you do, too.

• You won’t go to any venue that features live music because it makes your hearing aids screech, not to mention it is nauseating to see couples your age joylessly dancing to “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Oak Tree.” 

• You can’t name one Taylor Swift song. 

• When your new personal trainer asks your fitness goal, you tell him you want him to develop an exercise routine that will help you get your butt back because it has mysteriously disappeared which is why you don’t carry your cell phone — you need the curve of your butt to keep your pants from falling around your ankles and, even with a tight belt, they fall down whenever you put the damn phone in your pocket. 

• The day before a hurricane is to arrive, you tell your wife you are going to use your chain saw to remove the palm fronds that are brushing against the top of your pool cage which was damaged during the last hurricane, and that you need her to hold the ladder for you. She refuses, saying someone your age has no business being up on a ladder with a chain saw because you’re either going to fall and break your hip or decapitate yourself or her.  When she leaves, you do it anyway, and sawdust gets in your eyes because you didn’t wear protective goggles. The pain is excruciating and you wind up at the emergency eye clinic. Not that I know anyone this happened to. 

• You’re 150 pages into a book before you realize you’ve read it before.

• Friends are constantly sending you memes or posting on Facebook (used exclusively by old people) about how swell things were in their youth when kids drank water from hoses and didn’t have to wear bike helmets or seat belts. Yeah, the generation that produced Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush and Donald Trump sure knew what they were doing.

• Your bridge partners, fellow oldsters, can rattle off the order in which every single card was played in round two of game four three weeks ago but can’t remember who dealt the last hand.

• Hotel clerks ask if you need a disabled room or one near the elevator so you won’t have to walk so far.

• As you are following a Buick down the highway, the jukebox in your head suddenly goes off, playing this jingle: “Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick? A Buick, ’63 Buick.”  

• Your bank has had six different names in the 43 years since you opened your account, but your account number has remained the same. The most recent check number you wrote was 30487. Not that you write more than one or two checks a month these days —you have all your bills on autopay because you worry you’ll forget to pay them.

• As you and your wife are singing along to Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” she points out that, for 45 years, you’ve been driving her crazy because you’ve had the lyrics wrong.  Simon’s not accusing the guy who’s so vain about having an affair with the “wife of a postman, wife of a postman.” She’s saying “wife of a close friend.”

• You still have a landline. The only calls you receive on it are robocalls. You have been intending to have it disconnected but you never do because you’re attached to your phone number.

• There was something else you wanted to list here but you can’t remember it.

• As you’re finishing a post about the foibles of growing old, you feel a sudden burst of gratitude as you remember friends who would have given anything to live to be as old as you are. 

• Because you have nothing more pressing to do today, you count the number of bullet points in this post to see if Dryden really listed 20 reasons or if he’s cheating you.

The doctor wants to see you

Wednesday, August 2, 10:22 a.m.

Cell phone rings.

Recorded message: Hello. This is Pelican Harbor Dermatology Clinic calling to remind you that you have an appointment at  …  9 … a … m. on  … Thursday … August …10th. To confirm your appointment, please press 1 at the conclusion of this message. If you are unable to keep this appointment, please call us at XXX-XXX-XXXX between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays, and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. The Pelican Harbor Dermatology Clinic is pleased to announce the establishment of a new vaginal rejuvenation practice that will be headed by Dr. Alice Spoonmacher. If you would like information about our new practice, please call XXX-XXX-XXXX, extension 23, to schedule a no-obligation appointment with Dr. Spoonmacher, Thank you and we look forward to seeing you at our office located at 14254 Gulf Parkway, Bonita Springs, Florida. Good-bye.

Thursday, August 3, 7:01 a.m.

E-mail received.

To: Thomas Dryden

From: Pelican Harbor Dermatology

Message Line: Important!

This is a reminder that you have an appointment at 9 a.m. on Thursday August 10th at our office located at 14254 Gulf Parkway, Bonita Springs, Florida. Please bring with you a photo I.D and your insurance information. Any co-payment that is due will be collected at check-out. To confirm your appointment, please press “Yes” below. If you are unable to keep this appointment, please call us at XXX-XXX-XXXX between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays, and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. If you are having a cosmetic Botox treatment, we remind you that Insurance companies will cover Botox only when it is used for medical purposes or when it becomes medically necessary, so full payment will be due at check-out. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you.

Friday, August 4, 4:58 p.m.

Land line rings.

Recorded message: Este es un recordatorio de que tiene una cita a las 9 a. m. del jueves 10 de agosto en nuestra oficina ubicada en 14254 Gulf Parkway, Bonita Springs, Florida. Traiga consigo una identificación con foto y la información de su seguro. Cualquier copago adeudado se cobrará al momento del check-out. Para confirmar su cita, presione "Sí" a continuación. Si no puede asistir a esta cita, llámenos al XXX-XXX-XXXX entre las 9 a. m. y las 5 p. m. de lunes a viernes y de 9 a 14 hs. los sábados. Si se está sometiendo a un tratamiento cosmético de Botox, le recordamos que las compañías de seguros cubrirán el Botox solo cuando se use con fines médicos o cuando sea médicamente necesario, por lo que el pago completo deberá realizarse al momento del check-out. Gracias y esperamos verte.

Saturday August 5, 8:33 a.m.

Text message received.

Your appointment for 9 a.m. Thursday August 10 at the Pelican Harbor Dermatology Clinic is confirmed. If you are unable to keep this appointment, please call us immediately at XXX-XXX-XXXX. Cancellation with less than 48 hours notice will result in a charge that will be billed at the address we have on file for you. As an added service for our valued clients, during the month of August, we are offering 20 percent off nail fungus, cellulite and tattoo removal —please ask at the front desk for details. As a reminder, bring your insurance information and a government-issued I.D. and remember, copayments are due at check-out.

Monday, August 7, 11 a.m.

Email received.

To: Thomas Dryden

From: Pelican Harbor Dermatology

Message Line:  Urgent!

Don’t forget — you have an appointment tomorrow at 9. a.m. at our Bonita Springs office. Please bring your insurance information, a photo I.D. and cash, credit card or debit card for any co-payment that is due. While you are here, be sure and ask about our summer special on laser treatments to remove unwanted body hair, spider veins and stretch marks. See you tomorrow!

Today, August 8, 12 noon

Cell phone rings.

Recorded message: This is Pelican Harbor Dermatology Clinic, calling to remind you of your appointment which is scheduled for tomorrow at …  9 … a … m. If you are unable to keep this appointment, call — do not text — us immediately at XXX-XXX-XXXX. 

Today, August 8th, 12:10 p.m.

I place a call to the clinic.

Receptionist:  Pelican Harbor Dermatology.

TD: This is Thomas Dryden. In the last week your office has called on my cell phone twice … called my landline in Spanish  … texted  … and emailed … to remind me of my appointment tomorrow at 9 a.m.  I am calling to confirm that I will probably be there.

Receptionist: What do you mean by “probably?”

TD: Well, I could die in my sleep tonight. I could have a car wreck on my way to your office. I could even be abducted by aliens. There are a million and one things that could keep me from showing up at 9 a.m.

Receptionist: There’s no need to be cynical.

TD:  Well, there’s no need to treat your patients like they’re idiots. I like Dr. ________ but this is ridiculous. If I was coming to you as a Memory Care patient, I might be able to understand all those reminders but he’s a dermatologist. This doesn’t just border on harassment, it is harassment.

Receptionist: Look, I’m not the one who called, texted or emailed. That’s our scheduling department. It's their job — you couldn’t believe how many people don’t show up. 

TD: I imagine half of them don’t show up just to spite whoever’s sending these messages.

Receptionist:  I hate to tell you this  — don’t be mad — but you’re going to be receiving one more call this afternoon and a text tomorrow morning. I can’t stop them. They’re already programmed into the system.

TD: I understand, but please let the good doctor know that you need to back off all these reminder messages or I’m going to find another dermatologist.

Receptionist: I will do that. See you tomorrow.

TD: Probably. Good-bye.

Movie Review: Mission Impossibly Dumb

"Uh oh," I said to my wife yesterday when I saw the news. "The Silverspot Cinema is closing in a few days. Don't we have gift cards to that theater?"

She checked and, sure enough, we did — $50 worth. We received them years ago. We rarely go to the movies because there aren’t many movies we want to see. The last was in April — Super Mario Brothers — with our grandsons. Last summer we saw Elvis, which wasn’t half bad. In 2019, we took the boys to Toy Story 4. And in 2017, we saw Dunkirk. The dialogue was unintelligible because the fighter pilot main characters talked through their oxygen masks which, in combination with the whir of airplane engines, made it impossible to understand what they were saying. “Mersch Elba faux schmaltz,” one RAF pilot shouted to his colleague to (I think) warn him he was being tailed by a Luftwaffe Messerschmitt. “Gobblegook caca,” his fellow pilot replied as his stricken Spitfire spiraled toward the sea.

We went online to see what was playing at the Silverspot, one of those fancy multiplexes where the leather chairs recline and customers can purchase booze and food and have them delivered to their seats. Today's high-concept theaters are a far cry from the Liberty Theater in Mexico, Mo., from which I was unfairly ejected at age 14 in 1966 because my friend Harper, who was seated next to me, yelled, “I asked what your name was, not what you have” when James Bond (Sean Connery) asked Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) to identify herself. 

Our options yesterday were:

• The Sound of Freedom, a movie about child-trafficking. Twitter ads keep informing me the pedophiles and Christian haters who run Hollywood don’t want me to see it. If the pedophiles and Christian haters in La-La Land don’t want me to see it, who am I to go against their wishes?  Besides, I don’t want to pay money (or, in this case, use gift cards) to walk out of the theater depressed. If I want to be depressed, I’ll watch youtube videos of the leader of the free world trying to find his way off-stage, falling, misspeaking and sniffing children’s hair.

• The Little Mermaid, a woke remake of the Disney animated classic we took our children to see in the early 90s. No, thanks.

• Insidious: The Red Door, which the review described as, “Josh Lambert heads east to drop his son, Dalton, off at school. However, Dalton's college dream soon becomes a living nightmare when the repressed demons of his past suddenly return to haunt them both.” Uh, no. 

• Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth and supposedly final episode in a series of movies starring Harrison Ford as the title character. Friends were laughing about how awful it is and how ridiculous an 80-year-old Ford — rather, his body double — looks leaping between train cars. I’d as soon have a colonoscopy as sit through that — at least you get knocked out for the procedure.

• Joy Ride: “When Audrey's business trip to Asia goes sideways, she enlists the help of Lolo, her childhood best friend, Kat, a college friend, and Deadeye, Lolo's eccentric cousin. Their epic, no-holds-barred experience becomes a journey of bonding, friendship, belonging and wild debauchery.” I think not.

• Elemental, a Disney/Pixar flick described as “a modern yet fantastical odyssey of romance and self-realization clashing with the weight of ethnic and generational expectations. A colorful and cultural onslaught of imagination, relatability and sentiment, tailored by two endearing leads with irresistible chemistry.” I’m not going to invest two hours of my dwindling lifespan if someone can’t explain WTF a movie is about. 

• No Hard Feelings, starring Jennifer Lawrence. I don’t get Jennifer Lawrence’s appeal. She was good in her first movie, Winter’s Bone, in which she played a girl trying to track down her methhead father. Nothing she’s made since is for people my age. 

• Transformers: Rise of the Beast: Didn’t bother looking up the reviews for a movie based on toys Santa brought my kids thirty-some years ago.

That left us a choice of one movie, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning - Part One, starring Tom Cruise. 

The seven MI movies (to date) are based on a Man From U.N.C.L.E knock-off TV show from the mid-sixties about a secret agent. The original starred Peter Graves and Barbara Bain. The MI TV show is best remembered for two things: 1) Every episode began with Graves listening to a recorded message explaining what he was expected to do — his “mission” that always seemed “impossible" — which inexplicably vaporized after five seconds, and 2) its catchy theme song. 

We jumped in the car and rushed to the theater and were lucky enough to find a parking spot a few feet from the entrance, giving us just enough time to spend our gift card plus $20 of our own money on two senior tickets and two gigantic tumblers of Pinot Grigio, each of which held half a bottle of wine — the bartender was filling every glass to the brim because all that booze needed to be used up before the theater shuts down for good, and he was obviously hoping for a big tip, which he duly received.

The theater was nearly full.  We had to sit on the front row. Moments after we arrived, the lights dimmed and the movie began. 

The opening scene: The crew of a Russian sub detects on radar something that appears to be an American sub that is about to attack. The Russikies fire torpedoes in self-defense, and to their astonishment, the other sub disappears. Unfortunately for them, the torpedoes they fired do a 180 and blow their own sub to smithereens. 

Cut to a Botoxed Cruise, now in his sixties, who, amazingly, has a full head of hair without a single strand of gray. He is listening to a detailed message instructing him to find a high-tech key that empowers anyone or any government who has it to create havoc then disappear. The message, of course, vaporizes after five seconds. While it was possible to believe in the 1960s that Graves could remember instructions, it’s totally implausible in today’s attention-addled technology-dependent society in which nobody has the ability to remember anything unless it is entered as a reminder in their iPhones. 

Cruise spends the better part of the next two hours chasing after, or fleeing from, the bad guys, and interacting strangely with two female leads who aren’t nearly as pretty as the 1968 Homecoming Court of North Callaway High School in Kingdom City, Mo. Whatever happened to gorgeous movie stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Julie Christie, Michelle Pfeiffer and Kim Basinger? The short answer: Kow-towing to ugly women and their supporters who claimed that glamorous women were objectionable and nothing more than sex objects, Hollywood today features interchangeable female stars of average looks and unidentifiable ethnicities.

There is no kissing, no sex, no nothing between Cruise and the females. I assume the lack of PDA is to ensure the movie will play in places like India and the Middle East, where such things can get movies banned.

From my vantage point on the front row, watching a movie in which the aging male stars — there are no young ones, which would make Cruise look older than he already is — are shot from below the chin to hide their sagging jowls, the most “impossible” thing about Mission Impossible, Part 7-1, is that none of them have a single hair protruding from their nostrils. Somehow, despite chasing each other around the world 24/7, these guys have found time to use their Wahl Nasal Hair and Eyebrow Trimmers that leave their nostrils as hair-free as a baby’s behind.

Most of the movie is one action-packed scene after another,  including a hot pursuit through a futuristic airport and a car chase in a yellow Fiat through Rome that passes the Colosseum and Spanish Steps. The finale takes place aboard the Orient Express as it wends its way through Austria. Predictably, Cruise chases a bad guy (or does the bad guy chase him? After half a bottle of Pinot Grigio, I wasn’t sure) atop the speeding train, ducking split-seconds before the train enters tunnels. This will seem original only to anyone who has spent the last eighty years in solitary confinement — and certainly not to anyone who saw the latest Indiana Jones movie. 

In the final scene, Cruise and one (or both, I was completely inebriated by that point) of his female stars wind up in a train dangling from a bridge that has just been blown up. The cars fall, one by one, into the abyss, and finally, Cruise parachutes to safety. The movie concludes by reminding viewers to be sure to come see Part Two.

And I will, but only if I have a gift card I have to use that day.