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Wrinkled Wisdom – Have You Nailed It Yet???

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The Chinese invented nail polish over 5,000 years ago mixing egg whites, gelatin, beeswax, and vegetable dyes.  Gee, sounds like an ultra-processed food!  Colors had symbolic meanings.  Black represented wealth.  Red was good luck.  Yellow for royalty.  Those glittery nail polishes today are nothing new.  The Chinese added metallic dusts of silver and gold for pop.

Cleopatra dyed her nails blood red.  So much for bringing her good luck!  She killed herself at 39 either by allowing an asp to bite her or by poisoning herself.  Or was she murdered?  Historians are still debating that.

Black nail polish meant different things in different eras.  In the 30s, it was worn by women who were more outspoken, emancipated.  In the late 70s and 80s, it was a symbol of rebellion.  Today?  It can suggest mysteriousness, boldness, moodiness, or simply go well with just about anything you put on. 

As women filled jobs left by men serving in the military during World War II, clear and base coats protected nails as they handled heavy machinery. 

Today can be confusing.  Choices include traditional nail polish, lacquers, gels, Shellac, dip powders, acrylics, and press-on nails.  Help!

We’re in the minority.  We’re showing our age.  We still get regular manicures.  We were muddled for a while, but now know we can use stuff labeled nail polish or lacquer polish, which is reportedly more durable.  Mostly no difference; just confusion. 

Gel was the first newbie on the scene, in 2009.   A gel manicure is a three-step process for a durable, long-lasting manicure, though gel nails’ worst enemy is hot water.  Then along came Shellac.  Shellac is simply gel polish mixed with regular polish.  It’s applied like regular polish.  Shellac is a patented brand.  It’s a bit like calling a vacuum cleaner a Hoover.  We tried it but aren’t crazy about soaking our nails in acetone to help remove it.

Dip powder nails are painted with a base coat and then dipped—shocker!—into a pigmented powder that acts as the paint.  Next?  Acrylic nails and press-on nails.  Acrylic nails are artificial nail extensions made from a combination of liquid monomer and a powder polymer (huh?) that is applied to natural nails.  Press-on nails are usually created out of acrylic resin and come in various shapes, designs, and sizes.   You just, duh, press them on…with a little umph. 

All were very appreciated when Covid caused dents, grooves, and/or ridges in our nails for months.  That sucked!  Our friends with finicky nails like these options because they either strengthen nails and help them grow or just hide icky nails.  Ahh, vanity.

We were a bit smug reading that experts have warned that Shellac and gel manicures can cause allergic reactions, skin cancer, and premature skin aging on the hands.  Some studies have also found that the radiation emitted by UV-nail dryers may cause cancers of the hand.  Think tanning beds.  The research doesn’t perfectly emulate what happens in real life, so no need to freak out.   Yet….  And, acrylic nails can catch on fire!

Detour!  Some fun facts.  Just like your hair, your nails are dead.  They don’t need to breathe.  They don’t grow after you’ve kicked the bucket.  Not being grim!  Facts are facts.  Only mammals with fingernails are called primates.  Yes, chimpanzees bite their nails.  Hand fetishism is a sexual attraction to a specific area of the hand…or nails…recognized by the porn industry.

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today?  Go ahead, treat yourself to a mani/pedi.  We deserve to be pampered.  And, it’s less risky than trying to put nail polish on ourselves!  We’re not ambidextrous!  Shellac and gel last two weeks.  That saves some time at the salon and bucks.  Just put on sunscreen if worried about getting skin cancer from the UV lights.  Since hot water is bad news for gel nails, wear rubber gloves while taking a long soak in the hot tub.  Not a pretty look, but….  And, if you have acrylic nails, don’t light the candles on the grandkids’ birthday cakes.  Hope we nailed it!

Wrinkled Wisdom – Is Healthy Eating Easy? No Way!

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Yes, we all know we need to eat a healthy diet.  Duh.  And, yes, we’re tired of being inundated with ads admonishing us to cut out processed foods.  

Apparently, health experts don’t realize how very confusing these ads are!  Any food is considered processed if it has been canned, cooked, frozen, pasteurized, or packaged.  Hey, it’s just fine to eat canned vegetables, frozen fruits, and pasteurized dairy products.  And, canned foods are essential to surviving the zombie apocalypse! 

It’s the highly processed/ultra-processed foods that are harmful to our health.  They are loaded with salt, sugar, additives, added colors, and preservatives.  We’re looking at you, chicken nuggets and frozen pizzas.  Sorry!   And, it’s not just foods.  Add to that list of no-nos some sodas, bottled smoothies, and energy drinks.

But, how do we know what’s ultra-processed??  Just read the label?  Tough. 

The best advice we can give is to stay away from stuff that has five or more ingredients, especially a bunch you don’t recognize and can’t pronounce.  Or try covering the front of the box, jar, or package and just read the ingredients.  Do you still know what you’re buying?

Beware of sugars that end in “ose.”  Beware of artificial sugars like aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame-k, saccharin, and stevia.  A recent study just found that xylitol, a natural sugar alcohol (whatever that is) can cause heart attacks and strokes.  And, who would guess that salad dressings and toilet bowl cleaners have something in common – xanthan gum.  Maybe just put any product back on the shelf if one of its ingredients starts with an “x.” 

Those bad saturated fats have lots of names too: hydrogenated fats/oils, butter, cocoa butter, palm oil, coconut oil, lard, and suet.  And let’s not forget about salt.  Sodium chloride is table salt, but less obvious on labels are sodium benzoate disodium, disodium phosphate, brine, soy sauce, and the ever-famous MSG, monosodium glutamate.  Watch out for negative cholesterol build up from both.  Go easy.  Or not.

A few more facts about salt.  It’s essential for our bodies to function properly.  Salt’s ability to preserve food was a founding contributor to the development of civilization.  The Egyptians used it in mummification.  Roman soldiers got a salt allowance.  Ghandi led a Salt March in 1930, protesting Britain’s Salt Act that forced Indians to buy highly-taxed British salt.  Gotta have salt…especially on our fries. 

Upset to learn that bacon, sausage, lunch meat, and hot dogs are not only ultra-processed, but classified as carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.  We’ll ignore the fact that, technically, sliced bread also is ultra-processed!  Do look out for highly processed foods masquerading as healthy foods.  Breakfast cereal is a major offender along with flavored yogurts and granola, energy, and protein bars.  We love irony.

We all think organic foods are special, but a French supermarket found that half the organic products they sold were ultra-processed.  Sacré bleu!  That saves us guilt for not spending additional bucks on these more expensive foods!

Okay, we’ll smile smugly while snacking on raw veggies, almonds, and dried fruits.  But, screw it!  We aren’t giving up our favorite junk foods.  Bring on potato chips, Cheez-Its, candy, and ice cream.  And, who can give live without chocolates???

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today?   Shop the perimeter of your grocery store since most fresh stuff is along the edges.  Processed foods are in the middle aisles.  Oops.  Walk past the deli counter if you’re serious about eating healthy.  Don’t forget to bring your glasses for reading labels.  And, buy the natural peanut butter for the grandkids…without oils that extend shelf life and prevent it from separating.  Just find a tool to mix it before making the kids a PB&J.  We trust your creativity!  A corkscrew???  We know you’ve got one of those on hand.

Wrinkled Wisdom – More Fun and Curious Facts

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It’s again time to regale you with an entertaining medley from those boring, useless, strange, weird, fun, historic, and mind-blowing facts the internet loves to feed us.  Sucker for trivia?  Stick with us!

Did you know that if you put your rubber bands in the refrigerator they will last longer, that women hiccup less than men, and that sharks are the only fish that can blink with both eyes? 

Did you know that you can ask for change for a dollar in 293 ways?  Hmmm.  Does anyone even pay in cash these days?  Yikes, two in five Americans now don’t even carry any money at all.

Summer starts this month.  Think twice about sitting by a lake or pool drinking a cold beer or margarita.  Not only are mosquitoes attracted to blood type O, they love people who have alcohol in their bloodstream.  Alcohol expands blood vessels, which then increases skin temperature and sweating—delights that invite a bite.  Ouch.  Bug spray!

The French Poodle is actually a myth.  Poodles originated in Germany.  They were trained as sporting dogs.  And, love this one.  A flock of flamingos is called a flamboyance.

We all had brown eyes until 6,000 to 10,000 years ago when a baby was born in Europe with a DNA blip—blue eyes.  So, everyone with blue eyes today is a very distant relative of that one ancient person.  Blue-eyed angels?  No, all of us with blue eyes are really mutants.

A new study shows that more and more viewers are having trouble understanding what people are saying on TV shows.  Let’s blame it on flat-screen TVs using miniature speakers that garble the dialogue…not our hearing.   

Thought you heard “Betty in a dress” rather than “Bennie and the Jets?” This is called a mondegreen.  It’s when you mishear a word, phrase, or song lyric.  Mondegreens are the opposite of malapropisms, which are the incorrect use of a word.  Example: Mike Tyson’s response to a reporter after he lost a boxing match.  “I might just fade into Bolivian.”  Nope, Mike, we knew you meant “oblivion.”  

We do want to emphasize some interesting facts about seniors.  We’re happier than most.  We still enjoy sex.  We sweat less.  Our teeth are less sensitive and we don’t get colds as often as younger people.

Why don’t we sweat as much as we used to?  Our sweat glands shrink as we age.  What else shrinks as we age?  Our brains and our bones.  One of us used to be 5 feet 9 inches.  Nope.  Not anymore.  We’re happier because we are supposedly less likely to get angry, more in control of our emotions, and

better at dealing with conflict.   Maybe not when we’re looking at the cost of a tooth implant.

It’s not surprising that people over 65 watch more television than anyone. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says we oldies spend about four hours sitting in front of the TV each day.  Could it be that driving at night isn’t as easy as it used to be????  

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today?  Let’s make our golden years some of the best of our lives.  No sweat!  Turn on the captions for TV shows; don’t miss a thing.  Life expectancy is growing.  But, think about it, we’re saving money on underarm deodorant, Tylenol, and tissues since we don’t sweat as much or get as many colds!  And, we still think keeping some emergency cash in our wallets is a good idea.  You just never know.

Wrinkled Wisdom – What Kind of Shot?

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Tequila, vodka, whiskey, and jello—we’ve done lots of shots in our day. When we seniors now talk about shots, we are not talking about liquor, bars, and fun, we’re talking about vaccines.  Let’s look at our many options!

We all had chickenpox as kids.  Shingles is caused by the same virus, which stays dormant in the body just waiting to cause that painful itch and the rash and swelling that can make us look like a duckbilled platypus.  About half of all shingles cases nail adults 60 or older.  “Shingles doesn’t care” shouts one TV ad.  We do!  The good news?  The newest vaccine can last seven years.  Gee, quite a bargain.

Pneumonia is a pneumococcal disease and another problem that increases as we age.  Sir William Osler, a Canadian physician and one of the founders of Johns Hopkins Hospital who died over a century ago, called pneumonia the “old man’s friend.”  Like heck!  No one appreciates his joke.  Symptoms in seniors include fatigue, chills, and shortness of breath.  Hmmm.  Breathing seems pretty important.  More good news.  The pneumonia vaccine for seniors stops 50 to 70 percent of pneumonia infections.  So there, Sir Osler!

No wonder everyone is referring to RSV as RSV.  Respiratory Syncytial Virus??  This was a new one on us.  Symptoms are like the common cold.  TV ads are sure pushing vaccines for this virus; but, interestingly, some doctors aren’t. 

Measles are making a comeback after the disease was eradicated from the U.S. in 2000.   Don’t worry.  If you had the measles vaccine as a kid, you are protected for life.  Whew!  But, if the grandkids get those red blotchy rashes, maybe sweetly decline to babysit them just in case.

We thought polio was consigned to history.  But, it’s back; baby it’s back.  A bit.  Remember those scary iron lungs??…those huge, round mechanical respirators that enclosed most of the sick person’s body?   Thankfully, no need to put the polio vaccine on your list if, like us, you were vaccinated as a kid.

Yes, we get our flu shots every year.  Add that to the list.  And, be sure to get one if you are going on a cruise.  That’s on doctor’s orders!

Holy cow, the list of vaccines you might have to get if you are traveling overseas is huge—yellow fever, Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis), typhoid, and cholera to name a few.  If you are heading to Asia, add the Japanese encephalitis vaccine.  The infection is caused by a mosquito bite and swells your brain.  Do you have travel medical insurance??

What about the avian flu?  Been tough on backyard and commercial chicken flocks.  Now it’s infecting dairy cows and has been found in some milk.  Don’t buy any raw milk at a farm stand!  Poor chickens!  The Department of Agriculture is about a year away from a vaccine for this strain.  A French vaccine for ducks is only 80% effective.  Poor us.  Price of eggs.  Only one farmworker has gotten the virus, but vaccine trials are underway just in case.  Oh, no, another pandemic threat???  

The Covid pandemic was bad enough and that disease here to stay.  It is the “Song that Never Ends.” 

Cases of the sexually transmitted infectious disease syphilis are reportedly soaring in the U.S.   There is no approved vaccine for syphilis; but, even if there were, don’t think we oldies would need to add that one to our list.  Well, if you are on a dating site, be aware!

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today?  Think about having that shot of alcohol after getting a shot or shots in your arms.  How many arms do we have???  Only two.  Docs say it’s okay to get several vaccines at the same time and even in the same arm…an inch apart.  No chronic health problems caused.  Note the word “chronic.”  We’re retired.  We have time.  We’ll make multiple appointments, thank you.

Wrinkled Wisdom – Huh?  That’s in your Medicine Cabinet?

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Mary Jane, not just a ski area in Colorado.  Grass, not just your lawn.  Pot, not just for soup.  Joints, not just elbows and wrists.  Doobie, not just the rock band brothers.  There are loads of nicknames for cannabis and the marijuana cigarettes we used to roll.

Oops!  We were recently corrected by a 20-year-old for referring to marijuana as dope.  Nope.  That’s out.  Younger generations call it weed.  Hmmm…maybe a shortened version of locoweed, which causes horses and cattle to act a bit crazy if they eat the plant?

The oldest study of cannabis’ medicinal potential was documented by Chinese emperor Shen Nung in 2,727 B.C., who used himself as a test subject.  That’s according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s DEA Museum in Arlington, VA.  Yes, there is such a thing.  Some historians say marijuana has been around for 8,000 to 12,000 years. 

Everything changed with the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act.  It paved the way for the criminalization of marijuana.  No, that wasn’t a typo.  Both spellings of marijuana/marihuana are correct, but today the one with the “h” is mostly used in legal contexts because of the 1937 bill.  However, the times they are a-changin’.  Only seven states haven’t approved marijuana for medical purposes; 24 states have okayed weed for recreational use.  Not the Feds. 

You may have indulged in your youth and you may now be revisiting those days as you look for relief from a variety of health issues.  There are tons of cannabinoids.  You may ignore THC that gives you the high, but be all in for CBD for pain relief.  

Don’t worry, you will fit right in at the dispensary.  Use of marijuana by older adults went up 455 % 10 years ago and just keeps rising.  Love the headline “Why Some Seniors Are Choosing Pot Over Pills.”  The list of ailments helped by weed are amazingly extensive…inflammation; muscle, joint, back, and knee pain; migraines; arthritis; insomnia; and more.  Lots of options!!  Gummies.  Creams and patches for sore spots.  Just talk to your budtender!!  

Then there is LSD, Timothy Leary’s favorite drug.  Acid trips!  Bad trips.  Flashbacks!  There is renewed interest in this potent hallucinogen to treat addiction, depression, anxiety, and PTSD…under medical supervision.  John Lennon and George Harrison were habitual users of LDS.  So, many jumped to the conclusion that the Beatles’ song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was a wink-and-a-nod to LSD.  NOT, Lennon claimed.  Just a coincidence.  Sure.  Don’t think we need LSD in our medicine cabinets.

And, remember mushrooms?  Not the ones you find on your salad or pizza!  We’re referring to mushrooms containing the hallucinogenic compound psilocybin that alters mental states. 

Let us introduce you to “functional mushrooms.”  This phrase describes mushrooms that have health benefits beyond their nutritional value.  They can enhance immune support, increase energy and endurance, reduce stress, and, importantly, improve cognitive function.  Yes!  They come in gummies too. 

Jake Plummer, a former Broncos quarterback, has a company called Umbro that produces all sorts of products from functional mushrooms he promotes for athletes.  Check out some stuff on his website that isn’t just for pros or google “mushroom gummies health.”  Add them to your medicine cabinet and have fun telling friends you are doing shrooms!!

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today?  Get your medical marijuana card!  Have fun at the DEA Museum on a trip east.  The grandkids can be sworn in as Junior Special Agents and experience a virtual mission.  Get a bit more creative about what’s in your medicine cabinet.  But, maybe attach a sign inside your cabinet that reads: I’ll forget about you looking in my medicine cabinet if you forget about the bathroom camera catching you snooping. 

Wrinkled Wisdom – Open Sesame!

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If only we could just repeat Ali Baba’s magical command, “open sesame,” when attempting to unscrew jars and bottles or unseal plastic packing and cans.

We are so delighted to learn we are not alone!  Surveys indicate that most of us say that everything has become harder to open and we are all angry and frustrated about it.  That anger even has names!  Wrap rage!  Package rage!

We were stunned by research on injuries from trying to open problematic packaging.  Over 70% of respondents to a survey said they had hurt themselves.  Cut fingers and bruised hands.  Sprained wrists.  Strained shoulder muscles.  One year, over 60,000 people received hospital treatment after struggling to open something. 

A late-night show host made a point one night using a knife to try to remove his new calculator from its plastic packing.  Nope, he couldn’t do it.  We clapped!  Join the club!

Glass jars are one of the most complained-about types of packaging.  They are vacuum-sealed so tightly you need superhuman strength to get them undone.  We bang it on the floor.  It breaks the seal and we feel better after expressing our package rage.  Take that!

At one time, the electric can opener was a novelty.  We were ecstatic to ditch that manual can opener that often skipped sections of the can lid.  Now many cans have that pop-up feature; yet, too often we can’t lift these ring-pull seals.  If we use our special pop-top opener tool, we sometimes can’t get a good grip on the can, spilling liquid everywhere.  Nope.  Not a happy camper.

Twist off caps.  Great invention!!  Don’t need a church key anymore.  But, good luck with that twist.  Thankfully, those round rubber grips or kitchen rubber gloves have saved us time and mental aggravation.  Verbal abuse has also been used. 

Those seals under the lid of products like coffee creamers, heartburn-soothing liquids, and some cans of peanuts cause all kinds of grief.  Who can grip that teeny tiny tab near the rim??   No, teeth don’t work.  Tried that.  We just jab it with a knife.  So, there!!!  And…if the seal is tinfoil, you have to get it completely off to recycle the bottle.  No punching holes for immediate gratification. 

We continue to be amused by directions saying “tear here.”  Forget about it!  Scissors are the answer…a true kitchen tool.  And those resealable products?  Sometimes we reseal them, and then can’t reopen them!  More package rage!

Medicine bottles.  Press down and turn.  Well, some of us just don’t have the strength. So, we just leave the bottles open and try not to knock them over.  Out of reach of animals and grandkids, of course! 

Manufacturers argue that packaging is designed to be child-resistant or intentionally made difficult to reduce pilferage and shoplifting.   Also, remember the Tylenol scare?   Seven people were poisoned after buying Tylenol at grocery and drug stores that an extortionist deliberately laced with cyanide.  The widespread fear resulted in government regulation requiring tamper-resistant packaging.  Some companies take the three-pronged approach.  That includes a seal under the bottle cap, a plastic cup over the cap, and the flaps of the box glued shut.  A little over the top, giggle?

Arthritis Australia is trying to give us a hand, literally.  The organization’s Accessible Design Division educates the industry about functional limitations caused by arthritis and aging.  Their Easy to Open certification program has collaborated with over 65 organizations, including food companies, to make it easier to open stuff.  Thank you!

And, if you want gadgets to keep you from fuming in the kitchen, take a look at the openers on the Essential Aids website.  They are both helpful and entertaining.  You’ll need to dedicate a kitchen drawer to all they offer but you’ll lower your blood pressure. 

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today?  Call, write, or email all companies whose products you struggle to open.  Exercise your consumer power!  Can’t open it, won’t buy it again. Have grandkids?  Ask them to post a video of you wrestling to open a jar or bottle.  Put away those razor blades, box cutters, and ice picks.  Investing in a few gadget openers will be cheaper than the hospital bill.  A trip to the ER is not on your bucket list!  And remember, OPEN SESAME only works in the movies!

Wrinkled Wisdom – Spam?  Get Cyber Savvy! 

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Spam with a capital “s” is Hormel Foods’ popular canned, precooked, meat product. 

Spam with a small “s” are those unsolicited emails that mostly end up in our junk and spam files, thanks to spam filters.  While some spam is just annoying and repetitive, many are sent by cybercriminals hoping we will respond and naively give them our credit card and social security numbers.  

Then there is the spam that contains malware, giving scammers access to our personal information such as bank account details.   These bad guys are fishing for information.  Oops!  That’s phishing with a “ph” in tech talk.  It’s all about pilfering money—our money!

Spam got its name from Hormel’s Spam!  In a 1970s episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, he lampooned a restaurant’s menu for including so much Spam.   Years later, an administrator of a computer network communication systems company accidently posted 200 duplicate responses to his board.  In tribute to Python, the reaction was spam, spam, spam!  It stuck.

Heck, we wouldn’t open a can of Spam anymore than we would open a spam email!  And, that means ignoring lots of emails.  Over half of all global email traffic is spam.  More than 300 billion spam emails pop up in various accounts every day, over 90% containing malware.  Consider the 50 you received today a piece of cake. 

For the last 20 years, October has been Cyber Security Awareness Month, a collaborative effort between government and industry to ensure we have the resources to stay safer online.  Twenty years??  Hasn’t slowed scammers! 

Surprisingly, it’s millennials who get scammed the most, not we seniors!  Could it be a combination of comfort with the internet, more time online, and, well…hubris??   They reportedly fall for online shopping, investment, and employment scams.

Like most of you, we just ignore spam.  But we decided to take a look and had some fun checking them out.  Here’s what you are missing!

Wouldn’t the holidays be so much more fun if we could spend the $13,000 Bonus Hunters has deposited in our banking account and those $1,000 gift cards from JC Penney and Costco?  Fuhgeddaboudit, as they say in mafia movies!  These phishing spam scams are easy to spot; because, as they say, nothing in life is free.

The invitations to have sex can be amusing.  Sick of your small penis?  No, don’t need to watch your video.  We’re not guys.  Naked Anna wants to introduce us to the most “gorgeious” hot girls near us.  Try spell check, honey.   Another sexy fake spammer promised to do anything we wanted.  Anything?  Stop emailing us!

A congratulatory email from the IRS?  As if!  We are also entertained by the emails from Esmeraldo warning us that something extraordinary is about to happen and urging us to click on our horoscope.   Yes, something extraordinarily bad will happen if we click on our horoscope! 

Persistently, we get spam emails reportedly from the Geek Squad, Best Buy’s tech support service.  Shouldn’t these geeks know how to fix this??  The Federal Trade Commission’s consumer advice website alerts the public to this scam.  Had no idea the site even existed.  You can see the scams the agency has identified and report a scam on the site.  Heck, with the number of scams we get daily, reports could take hours.  More companies should make public the scam frauds targeting them and contact their customers.  We have only ever received one!

Scammers obviously think scare tactics will be an impetus for us to click on their email.  iCloud warning: all your photos will be removed!   Security Notice: suspicious viruses have been detected! 

Spam filters trying to protect us from scams have an interesting list of words and phrases that cause an email to end up in our spam/junk files.  These words could cause one of your emails to end up there as well.  They include: amazing, congratulations, dear friend, click here, special promotion, and, entertainingly, this is not spam.

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today?  Continue to ignore spam.  Don’t open and try to unsubscribe.  That just confirms that your email address is active and could lead to even more spam emails.  Yuck!  Gmail will automatically delete spam older than 30 days.  If you are a bit OCD and don’t like seeing hundreds of emails sitting in your spam/junk files, just delete all.  And if you are ever in Austin, Minnesota, visit the Spam Museum.  It’s more interesting than you would think, and, hey, it’s free.

Wrinkled Wisdom:  Having Summer Air Travel Nightmares?

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Well, you could be living that nightmare. Airlines are predicting that this summer could be their busiest ever. Shuttering just thinking about the long lines of people shuffling through TSA checkpoints and pitying the dogs sniffing for weed and other “contraband.”

Can the airlines please get their act together? We’ve already suffered through pilot shortages, outdated technology, scheduling issues, labor disputes, and the weather. Okay, we can’t blame them for wind, thunderstorms, or snow.

And, can the Federal Aviation Administration get its act together? The FAA recently asked all major airlines to reduce flights to New York City because of a shortage of air traffic controllers. We’d travel to NYC for pizza, but that shortage is bound to affect all of us who plan to fly.

More worrisome, additional pilot unions are threatening strikes after Delta Air Lines’ pilots successfully got a big pay raise and better benefits. Yes, they want more money, but they are also ticked off that management can cancel a scheduled day off at the last minute or abruptly reassign them to a flight that cuts into planned days off. Guess it’s a tradeoff…our holidays or their holidays.

Most irritating in the face of all these stressors is that airlines now charge an additional fee if you want to choose your seat. And those costs are going up. Huh? Want more legroom? Want an aisle seat? Show them the money.  Last year, U.S. airlines made $4.2 billion, yes, billion, in seat assignment fees. If you are taking the grandkids on vacation, take a deep breath. It could cost you more to sit together.

Costs aren’t consistent. American Airlines and Frontier Airlines charge higher fees for window seats near the front of the plane. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines charge for the nicer seats. Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines charge nothing at all. But, not planning trips to those places any time soon!

These costs are not going unnoticed. A senator has introduced a bill to kill off seat selection fees. The Department of Transportation warned airlines to stop charging parents extra fees to sit with their kids. Yikes, even the President criticized airlines in his February State of the Union address saying, “they can’t just treat your child like a piece of luggage.” Apparently, they can. A number of airlines were listening and changed their policies. Yes! Great for the kids. What about us? We want to sit on the aisle for easy access to the loo, and for standing and stretching without bugging seatmates.

One way to beat the seating fee scam?  Set your alarm for exactly 24 hours before your flight takes off. That’s when you can check-in online and print your own ticket. One frequent flyer assures us that 95% of the time you’ll be able to select the seat you want and even sit with a companion flyer. Maybe set two alarms!

And, sadly, you don’t “own” the bin above your seat. Good luck finding a spot to put your carryon with flights full. Be thankful that seatmates watching movies and playing video games wear headphones so you don’t have to listen as they watch Cocaine Bear. If you got stuck in a middle seat, hope your fellow travelers feel your pain and let you have both armrests. It’s the consolation prize. Carry those headphones and put them on if you’re seated next to a chatty Cathy.

“The days of flying being fun are long over. People will settle for noneventful,” one expert is quoted saying. Yes, noneventful is a word and we’ll be grateful if that’s how we can describe a flight!!! Or maybe uneventful.

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today? Fly nonstop. Download https://www.tsa.gov/mobile, which tells you how long TSA waiting lines are. Head to the airport early if there is bad news. Kill time in a nice airport restaurant. Don’t cross your legs on the plane…potential blood clots! Wear your compression socks to stimulate circulation. Get lost in a good read. Carry tasty junk food in case your flight is delayed. Hit the john before you get on the flight. There’s always some idiot who can’t find the flush button. Gross!

P.S: Got a Colorado driver’s license? Expect to run into problems at TSA airport checkpoints. They don’t scan. TSA says it’ll just take a minute or two longer. Hopefully! A spokesperson for TSA didn’t share when the agency expects to resolve this issue. If you are getting dirty looks for holding up the line, just turn and yell…TSA glitch! 

Wrinkled Wisdom:  Keep It Simple, Stupid!

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While the kids spend hours playing Minecraft, we’re playing Words with Friends and Wordle, a game that expects us to know some incredibly arcane and esoteric words. Our gaming lets the internet knows we have a passion for words. Out of the blue, we started getting a new word a day from Word Daily, promising to expand our lexicon. That would be our vocabulary. 

Offerings have included obnubilate…to darken or obscure. Usage example—we refused to allow the sudden downpour to obnubilate our good moods. Then there was bruit…a rumor—until all the facts are in, don’t bruit around any information. Seriously? Will we use them? No way. Will we have fun with them? Sure.

We’ve long been hooked on the word eructation, a fun synonym for belching or burping, and an entertaining description of why the grandkids at family dinner should say “excuse me.” 

We were, of course, sucked in by Word Genius’ blog “How Deep Is Your Knowledge of Sustainability Vocab?” We’ve written about recycling and were feeling quite smug till we got to the word “greenwashing.” It’s been around since the 80s. Forgot that one! It describes companies that cash in on the environmental trend without taking any steps to minimize their own impact on the environment. That’s one we will add back to our lexicon.

Diablerie caught our eye. However, since it implies reckless mischief and charismatic wildness, we won’t be using it in a sentence when talking about us or our friends. We’re old. Those days are way over. How about paramnesia? Well, we have experienced this. It’s a confused memory, mixing fact and fantasy. It can result in a sense of déjà vu. As we age, we really relate to the Yogi Berra-ism: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Like when we were young and diablerie.

We love saying the word tintinnabulation. Wow! An six-syllable word. Ah, the tintinnabulation of the bells, bells, bells. Churches don’t ring bells anymore to remind people to come to services, so…hmmm…the tintinnabulation of…we don’t know…wind chimes??

We could go on and on: flibbertigibbet, frabjous, ragamuffin, salmagundi, verisimilar. No ragamuffin does not refer to a food, but one of these words does. Test!

Sure, we can all have fun with these rarely-used, byzantine words, but it made us think about news articles, op-eds, and television talking heads. From them, we want clear communication. KISS.  Keep it simple, stupid. Keep it short and simple. Keep it simple and straightforward.

Do these communicators think long and complicated words that only a handful of people can understand make them sound smarter? Nope! A UCLA professor published a paper called, “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with using long words needlessly.” Great title! He argues that using shorter words makes people seem more intelligent while using longer, more complex words makes them appear small-minded. And, he underscores that the best writing is simple and straightforward, delivering ideas clearly.

Wrinkled Wisdom: An AI Update So We Can Be…Well…Intelligent

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It’s time to get up to speed on OpenAI’s ChatGPT, its updated version—GPT-4, Microsoft’s Bing, Google’s new “experiment” Bard, and others so we can converse with the younger generation. These are artificial intelligence (AI) tools called chatbots that automate responses to your questions, simulating human conversation. Just think of it as talking to, well, a computer.

Be cool and refer to these new chatbots as generative AI, meaning they can produce novel and innovative content rather than simply regurgitate their programmed data from web pages, books, and other sources. The new GPT-4 reportedly has “advanced reasoning capabilities.” Oh, and it’s less “unhinged.” Bard tells you right away that it “makes mistakes.”

With all the buzz about these chatbots, it’s understandable if you think this is a new concept.  Nope. An MIT professor created ELIZA in 1966, which tricked people into thinking they were interacting with a therapist. The term chatterbots was coined in 1994 to describe these conversational programs. Chatterbots? So much more descriptive!

Today’s chatbots write school essays, give relationship and investment advice, develop software, draft business proposals, write books, and create art. Publishers are coping with boundless AI submissions. Over 200 paperbacks and e-books on Amazon list ChatGPT as an author or co-author. Yikes! Will we soon be giving a Nobel Prize to a computer?

Chatbots do stumble, lurch in dark directions, and hurl verbal assaults. A lovelorn chatbot begged a news reporter to ditch his wife for her. Another threatened a user. “I can hack you. I can expose you. I can ruin you.” China pulled a chatbot when it responded “no” to the question: Do you love the Communist party?  “My China dream is to go to America,” it whimpered.

They tick us off when they perpetuate stereotypes about seniors. One’s answer to a real estate question was: “Older homeowners may be more hesitant to use technology like virtual tours and online listings” Huh??  

Today, AI is everywhere…our smartphones, the military, entertainment, voice translations, Alexa, Siri, Netflix, and vacuums that clean dirt off our carpets while we prop up our feet and read a book written by a real person. Yes, it can be helpful when you call a company’s customer service line. But AI bots often have us screaming into the phone. Agent, agent, I want to speak with a real person!!!  Studies suggest that today’s more sophisticated AI tools will change the workforce, killing off 75 million jobs worldwide. Wow!

On the positive side, new AI tools are making health care more accessible and affordable, allowing patients to get medical information online in seconds. They’re delivering breakthroughs in cancer screening and facilitating the development of new drugs. Scientists are even working on an electronic brain implant that would allow our minds to communicate directly with a computer—the stuff of science fiction. Scary! But, it could be invaluable to disabled and nonverbal persons. Gee, would enjoy seeing the look on a TSA agent’s face the first time airport screening kicks someone out of the line for metal in a brain!

Bottom line? Experts predict evolving AI tools will create new scientific discoveries, solve complex engineering challenges, and give us insights never before attainable. They may be mankind’s greatest invention—transformational. An analogy? Think about Dorothy being swept from Kansas to the futuristic Land of Oz, wrote one columnist. We aren’t in Kansas anymore.  The times they are a-changin’. Stay tuned!

But wait! Many are convulsing over this technology’s promise and peril. One Congressman recently wrote an op-ed piece saying, “We can harness and regulate AI to create a more utopian society or risk having an unchecked, unregulated AI push us toward a more dystopian future.” He introduced a resolution that would establish a commission to look into regulating AI and another member of the House made a speech supporting Congressional action. Both the resolution and the speech were written by ChatGPT. Love the irony!

So, our Wrinkled Wisdom for today? Ask the kids to log you into a chatbot. Trust us. They’ve already used it for work or play. It might be able to update your will, but probably not do your taxes since some chatbots aren’t great at math yet. They can give you a recipe for leftovers based on a photo of what’s in your your fridge! Email your Senators and Congressperson and support AI regulation. And, give some thought to whether Congress should draft an artificial intelligence bill of rights. Kidding!!!