As we grow older, we are supposed to grow smarter, but with the new-found intelligence, we have bodies that won’t cooperate – and thus the statement, “if I’d only known then what I know now.”

I may have grown a little cynical in my old age, but maybe it’s just that I think about things that I used to take for granted. In this world that has the appearance of a pilot leaning down hard on the joystick in a nosedive toward the canyon, perhaps the cynical nature is just trying to figure out the how’s and they why’s of our many inconsistencies.

Band-Aids. We all need them from time to time, and believe me, the older you get, the more you need them. My advice is buying the bigger ones the older you get. Maybe the packaging is a little easier to get into.

Is it just me or are band aids wrapped in an impenetrable paper that, unless you have a scissors handy, you can’t get them open? Well, not easily at least. And it seems to me if you ever needed a quick – easy opening product it would be something that is needed when you are BLEEDING PROFUSELY.

It makes me wonder how much blood exits the body before the Band-Aid exits its packaging. And don’t get me started on why the darned things have so much static that they fold back on themselves before you can apply it. My advice to those who have a gaping wound on one hand and need to open a Band-Aid solo and one handed? Buy some duct tape or apply pressure and just call an ambulance.

1. Perhaps I will date myself on this one, but growing up, our family’s cracker of choice was “Sociables.” You know them if you’ve ever tried to open that space-age packaging. I mean, with chips you get flustered pulling the plastic apart and exploding the chips all over the living room, but with Sociables, the basic problem is getting through that plastic barrier that hold the crackers.

You can’t pry it or pull it apart; it just keeps stretching with you. You can’t bite through it, and although that may have given you all a humorous image of me, but I always end up with that plastic wrap in my teeth and the main package is still not open. Oh, sure you can get a scissors, but in a hurry with multiple junk drawers in the house, “what’s a mother to do?” Plus, if you cut it with a scissors or a knife, the chances of self-inflicted wounds go up exponentially and then you have to relive my first rant on Band-Aids.

Alas, so many times now in my old age wandering through the cracker aisle, seeing and craving the Sociables, but think to myself, “ah, I just don’t have the energy for it,” and then buy Triscuits. Such treasures sitting out there that can only be harvested by the young.

It’s like having to give up steaks for cholesterol problems or pickles because you aren’t strong enough to crack the cement seal on the lid. When you get old, you learn to live with just the taste of the memories.

Saltwater Taffy. Nope. Not even going there, but to have something that tastes that good that you can’t scrape off your teeth with a putty knife. Just, no.

And, although there are many more things that are escaping me now, due to a mind that depends upon Ginko Biloba for chemically induced recollection, I am in a quandary because I can’t remember where I put the bottle.

So. I am watching Major League Baseball the other night. The pitcher gets in a jam and out trots the manager with a mandated mask on. Because obviously in most sports, COVID only affects the managers and coaches. The players go back to the dugout, all sitting around, goofing around… and interspersed between them are the masked managers. And of course, the referees in masks in the midst of 22 players in close contact with more of a fear of the middle linebacker than a virus.

It’s like the social distancing in the ticketing area of the airport for 20 minutes and them packing people like sardines into a plane, shoulder to shoulder for a ten-hour flight to England.

And finally, comparing a vaccine that was developed almost 60 years ago to the vaccine we just recently developed today. One thing you will notice, the polio vaccine was given, polio was eradicated. The COVID vaccine is given and you have to have it again… and again. Have we really made great strides in the pharmaceutical field?

Things that make you go, “hmmmmm.”