I'm Making A Change

Hmmmmmm . . . . I’m really not too sure about this. What if the gals (or even the guys, for that matter) in the secretarial pool don’t find these new glasses that flattering? Could it be that these ovoid lenses make my steely squarish irises seem too small for this tanned and craggy jut-jawed face? Is that subtly inflected swoop of an earstem too dissonant against my rigidly raked coif of silversheen locks?

Oh, how I wish I could quell the raging uncertainty in my executive gut! After all, I have never been all that comfortable with making a change — any change, in fact. For I have found solidity and sameness and rigidity and predictability to be funereally comforting! I perfected this hairdo in 1963, for example, and it has stood me in good stead for nearly half a century! My nail clippers date from the Carter Administration, my hairbrush from Truman’s (it groomed my father’s blocky skull long before it touched mine). I consider Old Spice ‘Old Dependable’.

And stasis rules more than just my wardrobe and my toilette — oh so much more! Daily breakfast since my 6^th birthday has ever been a single poached organic egg with wheat toast points and tangerine marmalade, accompanied by a deeply chilled mug (NEVER a glass) of 2% milk. My faithful red Schwinn 2-speed still serves my early evening exercise needs (despite the fact that I have had to go through 7 full sets of replacement tires since middle school). Though I had long ago said farewell to my aged parents, consigning them to eternal rest within the historic family crypt at Longview Meadows, I still have not yet moved from my tiny third floor childhood bedroom at 1405 Glen Acres Boulevard. I find the mementos and knickknacks upon its knotty pine shelves and the creak of its lone attic window far too familiar and reassuring to abandon.

You couldn’t imagine the upheaval of 1974! No, it was not the resignation of disgraced President Richard Milhous Nixon that threw that year into such a tailspin (though I was sorry to see him go, as I have faithfully voted Republican on every line of every slate of every election at every level — municipal, county, state, national — since I turned eighteen). Nor was it the abduction of Patty Hearst, despite my brief engagement to her first cousin. It was not the introduction of women into the priesthood of my beloved Episcopalian Church (damn thee, heathenesses!). And, while I may have been just a bit perturbed by the Kootenai Nation of tribal Americans declaring war on our U.S. government, that was merely because I am 1/64^th Kootenai (on my great-uncle Farfel’s side), yet am also deeply patriotic.

No, what caused all the upheaval of that annus horribilis was my fraught transition to triangular attire. Month upon month, it appeared that I would never master the knack of forming a truly trilateral tie-knot. The points of my pocket kerchief would continually refuse to remain pert and perky and upright, no matter the starching or the ironing (or even the stapling!). My chalk-stripe suit coat rarely lay at the requisite symmetrical slopes! I swear, it must have taken me virtually all of the 365 days of that year to finally achieve the angular splendor you see before you.

And now — yet another change! Good grief!