Poop! Aging jokes aren't so funny anymore

Poop!

Well, poop!

Well, poop already!

Remember when the jokes made by “old people” about bodily functions were funny not because we understood them or experienced them, but because our parents told us it was wrong to talk out loud about them?

The shock effect made them funny.

            The they-never-get-old fart jokes ("Blazing Saddles" need I say more?)

                        and then

            The constipation and bowel movement jokes flushed out the line-up.

           

Noisy knees and stubborn backs…

           

Jokes about memory loss --- You know, the ones they remembered they’d

forgotten.

                        “Oh, you tell it.”

                        “No, you go ahead.”

                        “No, you…”

AND THEN

            Old people and “sex” jokes! Eek!

(A friend tells me that in her 55+ community farting is a common as breathing, though the resident association strongly recommends that one not be done in close promixity to the other.)

Remember, this was when we didn’t get the reality of the jokes because our bodies moved us fluently, transparently through the world. We didn’t even process that we’d just squatted, kneeled, done the splits, tumbled, danced all night, climbed a mountain. We just did what we did because we could. That’s what our bodies were for.

From new car to old car (I’m from a car state folks) eventually something’s got to give.

The bodies we trusted mindlessly, the ones too many of us invested only minimal maintenance in have changed with age, and it doesn’t feel like a joke anymore.

So let me tell you about my bowel movement. Just kidding. ;-)

(my plate-and-screws repaired arm, 2011)

We’re fortunate to live in a time when creaky knees can be replaced along with crotchety hips. We’ve figured out how to repair and replace so many other parts to keep us alive and working. We know so much more about how the body works and what it needs to remain healthy…or to get it back on the path to health.

Pain relief comes in pill and pot form, and shots (not those “shots.” Ok, those shots too.) Fitness, nutrition, and health regimes have evolved from the one-type-fits-all presumptions to programs that can adapt to the individual’s needs.

Here’s the trick. We have to do the maintenance work ourselves to avoid living another joke.

So my question is: Why didn’t someone tell me when I was young to take care of this body? If they had, I wouldn’t be living these jokes today.

…Oh, that’s right, they did. I must have forgotten.

Actually, the jokes are pretty funny these days only because I know I'm not the only one f-a...passing wind. blush.

Come on, share 'em if you've got 'em. (Jokes that is.)