50+ Olympics. -– Rock The Wrinkle

Now that the Olympics are over, I think it’s time we came up with our own set of events for people over 50. Some require certain skills, others just call for the ability of each of us to laugh at ourselves and keep going. But all are medal-worthy.

Running to the train. Forget the movies. Have you ever tried running to a train, dragging two suitcases, a purse or a computer bag or a briefcase, possibly a hat or a jacket, and managed to breathe and keep your composure? If so, you get a silver medal. If you’ve done this over the age of 50, you get a gold medal. If you’ve done it over the age of 60, God bless you.

Texting. Hey, let’s face it. It’s not the easy. Especially for older, sometimes stiff, fingers that just don’t move as well as they used to. Add small keyboards on phones and you sometimes have hilarious results. Or obscene ones. Be careful. The difficulty factor rises after happy hour.

Opening chip bags. I know, we’re not supposed to eat them. But we do. And I’d like to meet the sadist who designs bags that cannot be opened by humans. I sometimes wonder if they give the bags to the gorillas to see if they can open them. If they can, they fail. It’s only those bags which no life form can open that make it through the assembly line. So if you have started walking around your house with a pair of scissors in your pocket, you may pass go and collect $100.

Recognizing anyone on late night television. Come on. Be honest. When you turn on a talk show at night, do you know who anyone is? Can you name their songs? Have you ever seen them before? Being tired will not raise your score. Bonus points if you know who anyone is on the music awards show.

Knowing where your glasses are. I’m thinking this could replace the 100-year dash, slower, but with more obstacles. So knee pads and a helmet could be required. When the starter’s gun goes off, everyone must find their glasses within an hour and return to their original spot. You can’t stop along the way to do other tasks. You must proceed to the place where your glasses are. Asking your dog to help you is not fair and will result in a penalty.

Running. I mean, do we really need to even talk about this? Just don’t do it.

Staying up late. It looks easy, but if you haven’t tried it lately, be cautious. Train slowly. Pace yourself. And if you have the opposite problem and are unable to ever fall asleep, I’d suggest reading through a legal contract.

Of course there are many more…and I’d love to hear your suggestions. It’s interesting to approach a stage of life where sometimes doing the simplest things just feels good.

And it’s okay to ask for help.

And it’s okay to just decide maybe you don’t want to do that difficult thing anymore.

(Except for the chips. Anyone have a hammer?)