Better together

Until I turned 40 I did not own a single jacket. Now I have a dozen, maybe two. A jacket is one of those things I suddenly find I simply can not live without, like eyeglasses, blood thinner, or socks. Yes — socks. They cover what the jacket can’t. I never go to the movies without bringing an extra pair. Security guards scrunch up their faces trying to figure out the prominent lump in my pocket. That’s if they dare touch it at all. “Socks,” I say, doing my best to sound nonchalant. What are they expecting? Scrotal enlargement? An external liver pack? C-4?

My mother moved out of the conjugal room because Pa refused to turn on the AC at night. On a boat and given half a chance, he will turn off the AC to the whole cabin. “Why can’t you just use a blanket?” we say. There’s that, too. I bring a blanket with me whenever I travel. No hotel bed is warm enough for me. Pa finds blankets a nuisance. His bed looks hardly slept-in. Unlike mine, which is permanently rumpled. At least my room doesn’t smell of liniment. Yet.

Why do we get colder as we age? Is it the life force slowly leaching out of us? My feet are especially sensitive. Put them in the direct path of an electric fan and they freeze up while giving me gas in the bargain. I have a literal case of cold feet. I also have what my doctor calls peripheral artery disease. It’s a fancy way of saying that I’m prone to leg cramps, mostly when I do my wake-up stretch. It’s caused by smoking, diabetes, hypertension — and cold temperatures.

Bingo.

You’re old when you wake up without an ache in your system — and feel strange for feeling fine. As my favorite cartoonist (guess who?) says, “I love everything about growing old except what it’s doing to my body.” Up until last year, “ague” was a word I only associated with crossword puzzles. What it is is a chill that penetrates to the core of your being and reduces you to a heap of spastic muscles. Sometimes it seems as if the cold is emanating from your very bones. You know you’re in a shitload of trouble when you can’t even hold on to a glass of water for the shivering. All you can muster is keep the blankets about you.

Oh, I rarely get sick and I have a high threshold for pain. But I’m always with the aches and cold. The other week I was in line at Mercury when a promo girl sidled up to me. “No,” I told her, “I’m not interested in what you’re selling.”

“But sir,” she piped merrily, “I just want you to try our medicated pain spray!” I don’t know how these people zero in on prospective customers, but that got my attention. I let her mist me in the usual achy places and ended up buying a tube. What can I say? The damn thing actually works. It even fits nicely in my pocket. Alongside the socks, of course.