Alan Fox

I embraced many beliefs when I was younger that later turned out to be entirely wrong.  Here are ten of my favorite misconceptions:

1. Every family uses a shared dish towel and passes it around the dinner table as needed. It’s wasteful to provide a napkin for each person’s individual use. When I was sixteen I invited a girlfriend home for dinner.  She was horrified by my family practice. She thought it was unhygienic. Five years later we were married anyway. At her insistence, I gave up the tradition I’d grown up with and now use napkins instead.
2. It is important to preserve your body by not working it any more than necessary. I avoided walking whenever I could.  Now I walk several miles a day.  For both health, and for fun.
3. Being smart is all that really matters for a successful life. I’ve since discovered that emotional IQ is much more important. If you can only have one skill, getting along well with others is now my top choice.
4. Everyone has a messy bedroom. As an adult, no one I have lived with has had a cluttered bedroom. Not even me anymore.
5. To encourage a child to improve you have to criticize or punish them regularly so they will not get a big head and lose their incentive to do better.  Well of course that was wrong.
6. Never praise a child. See #5 above.  Yes, really. And equally wrong.
7. You grow up, get married, have children, and live happily ever after, all of the time. Maybe you believed that one too.  I’m still chasing the fantasy.
8. Work is to be avoided at all costs. Retire as early as you possibly can. Currently, I still find that work provides an important social and intellectual outlet for me.
9. You can never talk to anyone about sex. Or birth control. Thankfully, that is simply not true.
10. Women are wonderful. Men are unpredictable.  When I was ten I invited ten girls, and one boy, to my birthday party.  (My mother insisted on the one boy.)  In my early twenties I had only female friends. Now I know that people of all genders can be wonderful, and also sometimes unpredictable.

I’m sure if you thought about it, you could compose your own list of the misconceptions you’ve held at various stages of your life.  Especially concerning topics you were never able to talk about. Life is a learning process, and the older I get the more I learn.

I’m glad there are a few advantages to being an octogenarian.

Alan

In last week’s blog, I lamented losing the flipper that stands in for a temporary tooth pending my upcoming dental implant surgery. On Thursday evening, the missing flipper miraculously returned.

I smiled when the flipper reappeared on my night stand.  I assume the darn thing had been hiding in plain sight on the bedroom floor, and the housekeeper found it.

Wait.  No celebration yet.

On Friday Daveen and I headed out of town for a brief respite from the pandemic.  I wore the flipper all the way to the hotel, then put it in my pocket as I got out of the car.

In our hotel room I discovered that the flipper was, once again, missing.  This time I assumed that it was back in the car, which had already been parked, so I decided to ignore it for the weekend and instead enjoy relaxing and watching football on TV.

As I might have predicted, but didn’t, I could not find it in the car when we returned home on Sunday.

There’s a saying, “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”

I’m not going to invest further emotional energy on this.  If the flipper knocks on my front door this evening, I won’t answer.  If I stumble across it in my bathroom, I’ll throw it out.  If it sends me an email . . . well, let’s not stray too far from reality.

When I was single I dated a woman who was upset that I had mentioned her, rather kindly, in my blog.  I had only used her first name, with a different spelling.  Nevertheless, she was unhappy, so I promised to never write about or contact her again.”  And I haven’t.

Flipper, wherever you are, I will not write about or contact you again.

That’s final!

I hope.

Alan

Recently, I had one of my front teeth surgically extracted.  Before I left the office, my dentist prepared a “flipper”.  This is a temporary, nearly undetectable dental appliance that serves as a replacement tooth for cosmetic purposes until the permanent implant can be installed. I was supposed to wear mine until November, when I’m scheduled to return for the implant.

I have many basic habits, such as eating the same breakfast every morning.  To facilitate keeping track of the flipper, I tried to establish a new habit. I would always keep the flipper in one of three places:

1. My mouth.
2. My pocket.
3. Next to my bathroom sink.

I tried this plan after a month of searching for the darned thing several times a day.  Often for hours.  I can’t begin to fully express my acute frustration with the flipper that always went missing.  I felt like Sisyphus, doomed to roll a large boulder up a hill, losing my grip near the top and having to start over again.  For eternity.  Yuck.

I lost my flipper almost every time I removed it from my mouth. You might not be surprised to learn that Daveen was far better at finding it than I was.

I had planned to write this week’s blog announcing how successful I had been in keeping track of the flipper for two weeks.  Hurrah for me.  But, as you know, pride goeth before a fall.

Sadly, as of today, I’m not able to report that I triumphed in establishing a new habit.

I have lost the flipper once again, this time perhaps for good.  Even Daveen hasn’t found it.  She suggested that I return to my dentist and ask him to make two of them.

I have a different idea.  I’m not going to replace it. That way I can end my constant irritation over losing it, since that is something I’m really talented at.

It is said that a habit is first a cobweb, then a cord, and finally a cable.  Maybe so.  But in this case I’m taking a short cut.

So those of you who see me smile before the middle of November, please just smile back.  Hopefully, with all of your teeth intact.

Alan