Age-old question: How do you handle a grumpy man?

Bob Morrissey

God, I hate being cranky.

I swore I’d grow old gracefully, but it just isn’t happening.

I’ve just turned 81, which means I’m on what golfers call the back nine. Two years ago, most of my aches and pains could be soothed by a good night’s sleep. But those days are gone forever — unless there’s medicine out there I don’t know about.

It’s as if old age snuck up on me when I wasn’t looking. One day I was humming “Make Someone Happy,” and the next day I was spitting out “Get Off Of My Cloud.”

My mother was right. “Getting old,” she said, “is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.” My pithy response was: “Have you ever tried getting through to Revenue Quebec?” Had she been 50 years younger, she might have responded with something like “Well played, Mauer,” but she was in her 80s and, yes, a tad snarky.

I’ve tried to pin down when my mood changed and I keep coming back to a mid-winter head cold five months ago that left me with distorted and fluctuating hearing.

Suddenly, I couldn’t watch my favourite TV shows without closed captions — which, incidentally, were almost impossible to follow if you weren’t a speed reader. And the former copy editor in me found the frequent spelling mistakes annoying.

Often I can’t hear my cellphone unless it’s within arm’s reach. Or the ding, ding of my microwave oven when my Swanson TV dinner is ready. I have trouble hearing cashiers …  and am embarrassed when I have to ask them, “Would you mind speaking louder?”

Meanwhile, customers in line behind me grow increasingly impatient. I know how they feel: I’ve been behind enough of them when they buy their lottery tickets. Oops, there I’m being cranky again.

My hearing problem has also altered my golf experience. The only time I chat now is when our group is bunched together on tee boxes. But once we hit and spread out, I can hardly hear a thing. Words are muted, and all I can do is watch the person’s lips. As soon as that person’s lips stop moving, I mutter a quick ”Ya, that’s right” and then head into the woods to look for my ball.

Plus, I ache pretty much all over with arthritis, especially in my knees. I’ve gotten a little gimpy, so I have difficulty walking, climbing stairs and getting up from low-slung chairs. At first I blamed my old football injury: I fell off a bar stool watching the 1973 Grey Cup game. But who was I kidding? It was old age. Plain and simple.

And there were other disturbing changes. Like dropping things. Is it just me or do all old people drop things? Who knew a knife or fork were so unwieldy? And trying to do two things at once — for many elderly, that’s living life on the edge. What about opening jars?  Fun, isn’t it? I can think of a lot better ways to work up a sweat. Line dancing, anyone?

It’s all made me irritable … and feeling slightly guilty. Who am I to bellyache? I’ve already had a good, long life that so many less fortunate would die for. Suck it up and be grateful — and that’s the goal now. I just need a little more time.

And that “little more time” can’t come soon enough because two weeks ago I hit rock bottom.

Board members of the condo I live in decided to replace the back lawn with plum-size stones after years of unsuccessfully trying to grow grass on rocky terrain. As part of the project, two of our younger condo residents left a huge mound of rocks on the area they were working on. Three days later, the mound still hadn’t been touched.

Anyhow, on the morning of the fourth day I hear scratchy, scraping noises outside my bedroom window. I look out and see my 74-year-old next-door neighbour, shovel in hand, spreading the rocks. Her face is flushed and she’s out of breath.

I open my window, and ask, “Jane, what on earth are you doing?”

“I’m saving us condo fees,” she said.

I said, “But that’s not our job. We pay condo fees so we don’t have to do jobs like that.”

She said, “Well, not everyone can afford it.”

I should have left it at that. But I didn’t.

“Why do you say that?’’ I asked. “People wouldn’t be living here if they couldn’t afford the fees. Look at all the expensive cars in the parking lot.”

Jane stopped shovelling and slapped a hand on her hip as if to say: “Now see here!”

“Why so grouchy?” she asked. “This isn’t like you.” Then she went on a two-minute rant with me as the target.

When I was slow to respond, she said, “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

I just smiled.

“Sorry,” I said, “I didn’t hear a word you said.”

Did I just say sorry?

Maybe that’s a start.