60 Things I Haven't Learned in My First 60 Years

Last month I was feeling philosophical about my 60th birthday and compiled a list of things I have learned in my first 60 years. A month later, I am ready to admit to some of the many things I haven't learned, don't understand or cannot figure out despite my advanced age and presumed wisdom. Here is that list.

1. Why anyone finds Jerry Lewis or the Three Stooges funny – in France or anywhere else.

2. Why people plant flowers around a mailbox. Attracting bees that could sting you while you check your mail doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

3. Nose piercings. I have my ears pierced, but I’ll never understand why anyone would want to pierce a nose or tongue. At least my earrings don’t interfere with any function of my ears.

4. Old people with tattoos. I assume they did not realize that they would be old someday and look ridiculous with “body art.” (I guess that after a night of drunken or drug-related debauchery, realizing anything is impossible until it is too late.) And besides, when you get old and should be checking every freckle and mole on your body, it would be good to know you can actually see them.

5. People who cut you off or pull out in front of you and then slow down. If you are in that much of a hurry, shouldn’t you maintain your speed?

6. Flags in front of houses. Yeah, I know it is Easter or autumn, but you don’t need to wave a flag about it.

7. I can never understand why some people have the spouses they do, what attracted them to each other in the first place and why they stayed together. I’ve given up trying to figure that one out.

8. Watching golf on TV. It looks to me like the telecast really has just one shot of a ball in the air and they just keep showing it. Golf is 3-D sport that suffers when watched in 2-D. And the announcers have to speak with such quiet voices that even if the action is exciting, you can’t tell.

9. Why people who go to tennis matches wear the same clothes as the players. Do they think they will be called down from the stands and pressed into action in case a player is injured?

10. Why baseball managers wear full uniforms to manage a game from the dugout. You don’t see football coaches attired in full pads and jerseys.

11. Why baseball players spit so much. If they aren’t chewing tobacco or something else, why are they so overloaded with saliva?

12. Why baseball players, particularly pitchers, wear those necklaces that look like the rope from my pool or a giant lanyard that is out of control.

13. Percentages and fractions. I am living proof that unless you are in a profession that requires this knowledge, you only need to know how much of a tip to leave or the amount you’ll save on the 25% off sale at Macy’s.

14. Ankle bracelets. Really? Why does anyone need to wear a band of metal of any kind around one’s ankle? Of course, you could point to my wrist and ask why I wear bracelets, but at least I can SEE my wrist.

15. Speaking of which – stiletto heels? The foot wasn’t made to be stuffed into a pointy shoe and jacked up 4 inches. I don’t get it.

16. The strength of the dollar. Come on, is it good or bad? And is it good or bad for me personally, for the country or for my stock portfolio? Anyone who can teach me that bit of economics deserves the Nobel Prize.

17. Restaurants that proclaim themselves as having “the best burger in the state” or something similar. How do they know that? Was there a scientific survey? Who participated? I’m skeptical, to say the least.

18. Comb-overs. Do men really think we are fooled by the hair imported from one side and swept across the head? Just face facts and keep it short. Bald is very in now, anyway.

19. How airplanes fly. The principles of aerodynamics should be outweighed – literally – by me and my luggage getting on board.

20. For that matter, I don’t understand how birds fly and how they can sit in the street and manage to evade my oncoming car just a split second before tragedy should strike.

21. Why some stores (I’m talking to you, Kohl’s) display their clothing items on racks so high that they have to provide long poles to retrieve them. I just want to shop, not fish, for my clothes.

22. Why a man would leave the house before dawn, spend most of the day on a fishing boat in the pouring rain with wind so bad that everyone threw up repeatedly, not catch a fish or drink a beer all day and return home saying the experience was fun. This Bud’s for you, Atno.

23. How the rug next to my bed continues to recede under the bed.

24. Why anyone would want to be a dentist. Ditto – proctologist.

25. Why people ski. The very idea of strapping thin strips of wood/fiberglass/whatever to my feet and hurtling down a mountain in the freezing cold has absolutely no appeal to me.

26. Twitter. Why would anyone think that their mundane activities of daily life are of interest to anyone else? I can understand texting people to keep in touch, but do I care if someone took a nap (unless it is the subject of a compelling essay, of course) or just finished lunch? My own life is boring enough for me, thanks.

27. How people manage more than one house. I know I would always have the clothes I need in the wrong location and I’d have to have exact duplicates of things like my hair dryer to be comfortable. I really don’t think I could do it.

28. All the words to “Louie, Louie,” and the words after “R.E.S.P.E.C.T., find out what it means to me…” I doubt that even the Kingsmen or Aretha know the answers anymore.

29. Insurance policies. It’s not just me, right? No one can possibly understand one of these, unless you work for an insurance company. My cable bill also falls into the category of being beyond comprehension.

30. Why people like mimes. Get out of that damn box already, will ya?

31. Magic tricks. They get me every time. I can even see a demonstration of exactly how one is done and I still am amazed. Sleight of hand, indeed.

32. Why men’s earlobes seem to get longer as they age. Have you noticed that?

33. Andy Rooney’s eyebrows. Really, if a woman had eyebrows like that, she’d be on radio, not TV. Speaking of which…

34. How Andy Rooney has made a career out of being cranky. How can I get that gig when he gives it up?

35. Photosynthesis. I must have been absent the day we learned about photosynthesis in science class because I am still amazed each year when the leaves turn color. Amazed, and very grateful, because I love the colors of autumn.

36. Why random songs pop into my head, especially in the morning. And then I am left humming or singing them all day. So annoying. “Tiny bubbles, in the wine…”

37. Why anyone would want to be a hockey goalie. And for girls, have you seen how ugly the uniforms are for a field hockey goalie? They look like the Pillsbury doughboy.

38. Why the one-day sale at Macy’s lasts for two days. I take full advantage of the extra shopping time, but technically, shouldn’t it be a two-day sale?

39. Which Olsen twin is which. I’ll never know, and my life will be no worse for my ignorance.

40. Why men go to football games in the freezing cold with no shirts and paint their chests and faces in team colors. Sure, I understand being a fan, but being dressed warmly trumps rooting for your team while freezing.

41. Tunnels. Ok, this is more my sister’s issue than mine, but we just don’t understand how engineers design something that has to be built under water. As kids, we never crossed into New York via the Lincoln Tunnel without her saying that she didn’t understand how there could be water above us.

42. Why men who barely paid attention in school love to watch practically anything on the History Channel. Nazis, airplanes, wars of any kind are all favorite things to see. I’ve got news for you – we won World War II, so you can stop watching now.

43. Why you always find things in the last place you looked. OK, I understand that you STOP looking once you find something, making that the LAST place, but couldn’t the missing item magically appear in the FIRST place you looked so you could stop looking sooner?

44. Black Friday. You would have to tie me up and DRAG me out to shop at 4 AM on the day after Thanksgiving. Nothing is so important for me to buy for ANYONE that I would get up before dawn and fight the lunatics shopping at that ungodly hour. No sale.

45. Tiny purses. With all our devices (phone, Blackberry, whatever…), plus lipstick, wallet, credit cards, tissues and who-knows what else, it seems improbable to me that anyone would buy a teeny, tiny little purse more fit for Barbie than for today’s woman. And yet you see them, and women buy them. Unless you have a lady-in-waiting standing by with all that paraphernalia, how is a stylish little purse going to help you?

46. Speaking of purses, I don’t understand why Queen Elizabeth carries a purse. Shouldn’t she, of all people, actually have a lady-in-waiting with a handful of cough drops or tissues if she needs one? Or do you think she has a cell phone in there and whips it out to text the grandkids every now and then?

47. Why people leave sporting events with less than a minute to go. OK, if the game is a blow-out and there is no chance that the outcome will change after you leave, feel free to get yourself to the parking lot so you can be gone 12 seconds before me. But if the game is tied or merely close, what is so important in your life that you cannot wait another 12 seconds to see the end of the game? I never leave until the game is over – no matter what the score may be.

48. My subscription to the Star-Ledger. If I cancel the paper for a few days because I will be away, I can extend the subscription or donate it to some school program. In either case, is there any chance that I’ll ever know where the paper went if donated or when the subscription is supposed to stop? I have visions of the paper lying in the driveway years after I have died or sold the house. Maybe I should put that in the real estate listing: “4 bedrooms, in-ground pool, and subscription to the Star-Ledger.”

49. Science fiction. I know that everything from Star-Trek to Star Wars appeals to the masses, but I just don’t get the attraction. You’d have to pay me to get me to watch “Avatar.” I just cannot suspend my sense of reality long enough to buy into science fiction.

50. The metric system. I’m not alone here, I know, but I actually don’t get weights and measures in general. I can recognize a liter of soda, but if a recipe calls for a cup of anything, I better have the right measuring device around because I just don’t follow.

51. Cotton Candy. I don’t understand how anyone could find hideously colorful and sweet cotton on a stick appealing.

52. I don’t understand how Hershey Kisses or M&Ms can make you gain weight. I can conceive of a weight gain after eating a pound of beef, but those little tiny, rapturously delicious pieces of chocolate heaven? Unless you eat a pound in one sitting, you should not have to suffer any consequences.

53. Why bad things happen to good people. Sure, I understand our rationalizations (God never gives you more than you can handle, etc.), but it still doesn’t make sense to me to see something like a young football player paralyzed for the rest of his life. It is the bad people who should suffer the consequences of their actions – if we can figure out who they are.

54. Cursive. I had pneumonia in the 3rd grade and missed most of the unit on cursive. Besides, I went to public school, where penmanship was never stressed as much as in parochial school. Even so, today, when penmanship is truly a lost art, I regret that I regressed over the years to essentially printing everything I write because I was absent in the 3rd grade. And my “handwriting” is getting worse with age. Thank God we type practically everything these days.

55. The Internet. It goes without saying that I cannot understand the math and science behind the Internet but that’s not what I am referring to. I don’t understand how, in this day and age, anyone can exist without it. It is so much easier to pay bills (without stamps!) shop, find restaurants, movie times and phone numbers as well as to keep in touch with people on-line than through conventional means. Let’s face it, if you don’t have Internet access, you can’t even read this essay.

56. Christmas lights that outline roofs. Not only does this practice make no sense to me – are you lighting up the house so Santa can find it? – but it also strikes me as pretty risky to execute.

57. The difference between flowers and weeds. If you buy it at the nursery and plant it yourself, that makes it a flower as opposed to a weed? Hey, if it grows (and especially if it flowers) and it’s green, I’m not yanking it out.

58. Ordering coffee. There are so many versions of coffee available now, that it is a good thing I don’t drink it, because I’m sure I’d never know the difference between a double latte, espresso or Bolivian blended whatever.

59. No matter how cold it is, and especially in the winter with snow on the ground, I inevitably see some guy wearing shorts. I’ll just assume he came from the gym and not that he has completely lost his mind. But really, how about slipping on a pair of sweats to cover those bare legs when it is 15 degrees out? Just a suggestion.

60. Fake deer in the front yard. I live in the wilds of Hillsborough where there are plenty of real deer to go around, so I see no need for fake ones looking like they are grazing in front of your house. You know I’ll slow down if I see them.

61. Finally, I can’t figure out if I wake up during the night because I have to go to the bathroom or if I have to go to the bathroom because I wake up. In either case, it is getting tougher to sleep through the night.