Delusions of Adequacy

 

I am not perfect. My first wife accused me of having “delusions of adequacy.” While most of the time I think of myself as fairly competent, there are times when I do something so dumb, I wonder if aliens abducted me during the night, and fiddled with my brain. Or maybe it was due to the time when I was 5 years old and was walking out of the kitchen when I heard my older sister yell, “Fore,” just before the golf club in her hands hit me and knocked me to the floor. I still have a dent under my left eyebrow to prove how bad a golfer she was. In “Joy of Sect” (Season 9, Episode 13 of “The Simpsons”) Homer has been brainwashed by the Movementarian cult. When the family is rescued and sent through deprogramming, the “deprogrammers” use deliberately jarring, humiliating affirmations to break the hypnotic conditioning. As part of that reset process, they have Homer chant, “I am an idiot.” I’ve never been in a cult, but occasionally Homer’s chant enters my brain. Let me paint a picture for you. I enjoy shuffleboard. At the competitive level, there’s strategy, psychology, and knowing how varying nuances from court to court need to be dealt with. I was competing in the Southeast Missouri Senior Games a few years ago. It was in a gym, and it was a hot summer day. The air conditioning periodically came on. Each time it did, a blast of air would push off the beads they had on the floor that were used to speed up the disks. Without the beads, you could shove a disk, and it would stop after just 10 feet. Then you’d have to apply more beads to the court and take your shot over again. This happened to me, and when it did, I walked over to a chair on the side of the court, where there was a jar of beads. I thought the jar was like the ones my shuffleboard club uses. They come with an exterior cap and underneath that is another cap with holes drilled to spread the beads. I quickly removed the cap, and went to spread the beads. Guess what? This jar didn’t have an exterior cap. I didn’t bother to look at the cap closely when I removed it, and there was nothing covering the jar. I dumped half of the jar onto the court. At that point I started chanting, “I am an idiot, I am an idiot.” I accepted the laugh and embarrassment for my mistake. Whenever I do something spectacularly stupid, I understand why my wife worries about me. What I don't understand is why she worries about me when I'm doing something I've successfully done thousands of times. I have always considered my wife to be my “brain trust.” She’s 10 years younger than me, and when we met, her brain attracted me as much as her good looks and sense of humor. She could keep up with me, and she could put up with me – two very important qualities in a potential mate. What I didn’t realize about her until much later in our marriage, is that she is a control freak. If you ask her, she’ll readily admit it. If you strap me to a polygraph, I will admit that I am a control freak as well. I started this story by explaining that I am not perfect. I am far from it. I measured once, and found I was over 3 meters away from perfection. I own that. That being said, despite my advancing years, there are certain things that I feel are still within my mastery. One of them is navigating around St. Louis. Sure, there are still places I have not been to in St. Louis, but there are also places I have traveled to and from thousands of times. My wife can’t help herself. Even though deep down she realizes that when she isn’t with me I somehow manage to get from our house to my destination and back, she still tells me where to turn when we’re going someplace I’ve been to thousands of times. Yes, I have my senior moments, maybe even senior hours, and occasionally senior days. But hey, I’m not in Depends yet, I’m still dressing myself, still brushing my teeth, and mowing the lawn. So why does she think that I need help driving back home from Costco? The very worst was the night my wife and one of her girlfriends were in the car, and we were going to a restaurant we had never been to before across town. I had Google Maps going, and between GPS lady, my wife, and her girlfriend, I had 3 women telling me what to do! My wife insists she's only trying to help. She's probably right. But if I ever drive past our own house while she's sitting beside me, I promise I'll start chanting, "I am an idiot." Until then, I think I've earned the right to find Costco without a committee.