Thinking Out Loud

By Gerard Meister

I came across a study the other day purporting that American's spend more money on breast implants and Viagra than on basic Alzheimer's research. Given our value system, this doesn't surprise me. After all, Americans have always spent more money on, say, Chiclets than on school textbooks, at least K through 8th grade. What concerns me is what the future - thirty, forty years from now - might hold for all the baby boomers shelling out that kind of dough.

Imagine a scene in the year 2034. It is late afternoon: a group of surgically enhanced women flouncing by a shuffleboard team of chemically fortified men. The men pause as the women slow down, but no one remembers what they're supposed to do next. The women, after milling around, decide to go play some bridge. The poor guys, perhaps befuddled by the happenings, can't recall the score and have to start the game all over again. Because this strange interlude throws everyone's schedule out of kilter, some of the guys are too late for their nap and nearly everyone misses out on the early bird, which makes for a lousy week. See what I mean?

Perhaps lost in the hurly-burly of recent events was the passing of one of America's greatest artists, Larry La Prise, who died peacefully in his sleep earlier this year at the age of ninety-three. Mr. La Prise was the composer of The Hokey Pokey, America's favorite party-time tune. His music-filled memorial service, however, was marred when the family tried to put the departed Mr. Laprise into his casket. First they put his left leg in……….and then the trouble began.

My travails at the supermarket continue. Although this time, I thought I would make it out the door without being accosted. I had already navigated through two thirds of the store and felt safe once I got to the produce. After all, I mused, no one gets passionate about Romaine lettuce or endives.

But when I got to the fruit, my luck ran out. I had my eye on a large, tight bunch of luscious-looking Red Globe grapes. (They're the kind that is not seedless.) I was about to lift the bunch into my cart, when a voice caught my ear with: "Mister, don't take such a big bunch, your wife won't like them."

"Excuse me?" I said, as I wheeled around half expecting that it was my imagination playing tricks on me. It wasn't. A smiling septuagenarian in plaid shorts and a striped polo shirt had me fixed firmly in his gaze.

"I told you not to take such a big bunch. Your wife won't eat them because of the pits. Women don't like to spit. You should know that."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I admitted, and dropped the big bunch like it was a hot potato and picked up a much smaller one. "But, how did you know I was married?"

"I can always tell," he said, nodding wisely. "You have so many healthy things in your wagon, you know - broccoli, yogurt."

Just then a buxom young thing in a skimpy, skin-tight halter-top leans between us to grab a plastic bag. "Er…ah," I asked, "what was that you were saying?"

"Who me?"

"Yes, you."

"I didn't say anything, I was just looking around."

"Yeah, me too," I said over my shoulder on the way to the checkout. Nibbling on the grapes on the drive home, I quickly realized that I had nowhere to spit out the pits. "Geez," I said to myself. "Maybe that guy was right after all."