Welcome, President Geezer

"I'm the president? Of what?"

Sad but true, our next president (he should live so long) is a geezer. No matter how you dress him up, Joe Biden is old. As in "old coot," "old codger" and "ready for the glue factory." I'm willing to bet he has tinnitus, annoyed if not downright irritable bowels, some level of arthritis, and that he gets up several times a night to pee. His teeth are not original. He may or may not have cataracts. He definitely has dementia. 

After all, the man is 78. Trust me, by the time you hit your 70s it's not a pretty picture. I speak from experience, and although I'm four years younger than Joe, I'm in the same the ballpark. It's not a good one.

Today I went to the office of my cardiologist to get outfitted with a heart monitor. This was to learn why I get dizzy spells and pass out, or almost pass out, for no apparent reason. During a telephone appointment with a staff nurse practitioner (God forbid a doctor should waste his time talking to patient), I was assured that it was "no big deal" and would simply involve wearing "a little sticker" on my chest for 30 days to check my heart's functions. 

As it turned out, it was a big deal. In fact, deals don't really come much bigger. The "little sticker" turned out to be a hard plastic unit which held a plastic, battery-operated monitor that would send live data to some computer somewhere, manned by someone who would evaluate the various beeps and bleeps my heart outputted. The plastic unit and the monitor were about the size of a large Butterfinger's bar -- the kind they hand out in rich neighborhoods on Halloween, not the skimpy fun size. The whole clumsy apparatus was attached with some sort of skin glue augmented with adhesive tapes. 

There was a separate, dedicated iPhone sending the data that I had to keep within 10 feet of me at all times. It would beep continually, telling me it was working, and needed to be recharged nightly. I would have to replace the monitor every week, and change the tape holding it on my skin every few days. I could shower, but only with my back to the spray. WTF? And if the little green light turned orange, that was bad. And I had to do this, and that, and blah, blah, blah. After two nurses worked up a sweat getting it all taped onto me, I realized I wanted no part of it and instructed them to, "Get this thing off me!" 

For all I know, Joe Biden has one of those things on him. Or he may have something even worse -- who knows what happens between the ages of 74 and 78? Anyway, let's all pray he lives because if not it's that bitch on wheels running things, and that can't be good.