Somewhere Over My Rainbow

Once achieving “senior” status, new worlds open up. The term senior discount becomes user-friendly. Ticket prices, restaurant food and geriatric aids are reduced. This is easily accepted as a deserved benefit earned by merely surviving. A bit of tarnish, also accepted, is the next plateau, reached when you are no longer asked for an ID to verify senior status.

Spattered among these benefits are inescapable side effects. Joints and muscles don’t react as they once did before seniority. Aches and pains become companions instead of occasional visitors. Doctor visits become necessary, as opposed to only valid when bones are broken. You spend an inordinate amount of time searching side effects, and then weighing the pros and cons.

But a pet peeve is the addition of an abundance of pills to the medicine cabinet. They come in a rainbow of colors. What I call the over-the-hill-take-your-pills stage of life. My wife and I have our own separate shelves for medication and supplements. We have familiarized ourselves with Omega oil (sounds much better than fish oil), CoQ10, one a day vitamins (which now irritatingly have a “senior” product), Red Yeast Rice, Niacin, and aspirin. Aspirin used to be for a rare headache. Not any more.

In the morning I take an oval orange vitamin, and a pretty gold Omega oil tablet. At night with a meal a small baby aspirin, orange flavored no less. I wonder if the term baby aspirin is like the name change for calf to veal – roasted baby calf would not be good to put on a menu, but veal is delicious. Before bed I get a pink pill which I was warned could induce flushing. I knew not what flushing was. Until I flushed. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t hurt. You are just HOT. And uncomfortable. My sympathy now blossoms when my wife emits the hot flash warning. So, I have a rainbow of colors I ingest. My wife takes some of the same pills and additional little white ones for a variety of problems. Oh, and an oval canary yellow pill for high blood pressure.

For those of you still in your youth - to me that’s under 60 - and refuse to take pills, get ready. If you cannot physically swallow a pill, I suggest you research the Kevorkian method of termination. In my younger days I bragged about not having to take a pill. I vowed never to take any – period. Be careful about vowing anything.

This is supposed to be a mystery blog. Well, the mystery is how the heck did I get to this point so quickly? Watch out, you’re next if you’re not there already. Peek over your shoulder every once in a while. Seniority is coming. It ain’t for sissies.