Last month I detailed the angst of Nicotine deprivation while undergoing surgery. A whole 28 hours and 25 minutes without a smoke.
Healing has taken every bit of the 4-6 weeks the doctor predicted and has greatly limited my activity. Thus, I have spent too much time doing the unhealthiest thing a BOOMer can do… Doomscrolling Facebook.
“Doomscrolling” is defined as “the act of spending excessive amounts of time scanning digital content that elicits negative emotion”. This, in concert with constant post-op pain, is not a recipe for a cheerful existence.
I’ll keep this apolitical, but suffice it to say there are many groups/factions out there who want to get rid of BOOMers. Normally I’d laugh this off, but history taught me that when certain ideologies came into power, they in fact, single out specific people deemed a “hindrance to the master plan”. They didn’t play games with it either. I have nightmares of some bearded 30-year-old trust fund millionaire handing me a ticket to a boxcar to who-knows-where.
What did I do that was so awful to earn this open hatred besides being born between 1945-64? That’s the part that hurts. You may not embrace my beliefs, but I’ve been a pretty good guy for most of my life. I never stole a freight train. I don’t even ask for the senior discount at the grocery store. I need to be “eliminated”?
Be patient. Many BOOMers are finally enjoying life. Let us have a few years of fun.
We’ll all be gone eventually.
Speaking of “fun”, when scrolling between these “Get Rid of the Boomers” posts, I am assaulted by ads for sexual performance products that border on- as Archie Bunker put it- “soft pore cornagraphy”.
Some are actually entertaining. “Swallow this!” “Put this under your tongue!” These pitches are generally driven by a semi-winsome, somewhat needy-looking lady draped in crepe paper lingerie looking for a guy who can last 24 hours.
While there are medications that help in this regard, these online claims are (in the words of a reputable local physician), “science fiction crapola”. Still, while doomscrolling, they can make you wonder, “what’s wrong with me?”
24 hours? Aren’t you supposed to call 911 after 4 hours?
It’s not that I mind an occasional ad for anything that helps a BOOMer feel better or lusty or whatever. The sheer volume of these however, gives me the impression that some algorithm somewhere thinks I haven’t had a good time since my daughter was born.
She turned 36 this year.
Summertime is baseball time. I’m a Yankee fan now, having dumped the Chicago Cubs and Miami Marlins along the baseline of life. Scrolling the scores has been exasperating this season. The Yankees have one of the best-paid teams in the sport, yet for all that money, most of their players couldn’t hit a bull in the butt with a base fiddle. Yes, they’ve won more than they’ve lost this summer- barely- but night after night the Yanks have stretched my stitches with their pathetic offense. They’ve scored a run here and there but have hardly been the Bronx Bombers of old.
Doomscrolling my Facebook feed has another drawback. I’m blessed with many friends and followers, and it seems like every time I venture into the feed, someone has experienced the searing pain of a pet passing. I think it’s totally appropriate to post these losses. We all want to know when someone is hurting to let them know we care. Having been through it so many times, I know what the poster is feeling and always try to offer a word of support. This was a tough summer for so many! I haven’t seen one picture of a beloved dog or cat that hasn’t made me tear up. Sometimes a lot.
Very often, though, the #RIP posts are followed up by comic relief- a video of a semi-winsome, somewhat needy middle-aged woman dressed in crepe paper lingerie trying to “come-hither” me into buying this pill or that projectile and telling me I am “missing out”. The hilariousness of it all softens the sadness.
One other thing doomscrolling has taught me- anything in the way of news or politics that sounds too good to be true usually is. Fact-check everything you choose to share, regardless of political persuasion.
What a summer. Non-stop prohibitive heat when you have five inches of subcutaneous stitches holding your thighs and hips together limits what you can do inside or out. But there was one event I was not going to miss- Leanne Morgan at the Montgomery Performing Arts Center!
Ten days after the surgery, I put on my dress sweatpants, healing cream on the stitches, and shuffled to MPAC for one of her four sold-out shows. She was the highlight of the summer. Her self-deprecating humor is relentlessly pain-inducing when you’re trying not to laugh your sutures loose. I highly recommend you check out her sitcom (“Leanne”) on the relentlessly “let’s raise our prices again” NETFLIX.
She even signed me a poster! I could scroll that all day long.
Greg Budell has lived in Montgomery for 20 years. A 50+ year veteran of radio, TV and writing, Greg hosts the Newstalk 93.1FM Morning Show with Rich Thomas and Jay Scott, 6-9 AM Monday – Friday. He returns weekday afternoons from 3-6 PM for Happy Hour with Pamela Dubuque and a variety of sidekicks. His favorite topic is life! Greg can be reached at gregbudell@aol.com.