a)
the “mustard” in question was most likely derived from a slang cowboy expression,
the
proper mustard, meaning the genuine article, which is in itself a
bastardization of the military phrase passing muster indicating achievement of a certain standard
and
b)
the word “cut” was used in the sense of to cut a fine figure or to
cut a dash, another slang term dating back to the Georgian era, meaning:
to have an attractive appearance.
A re-examination of
the song lyrics indicates they were probably intended as a lament to the waning
sexual attractiveness of the singer.
I like my juvenile
interpretation better, but cannot deny, as I myself descend into the increasingly
challenging depths of senior status, that the original etymology gives the
saying too old to cut the mustard a dreadful ring of truth. Since it
is impossible to turn back the clock (a lovely analogue idiom, soon to become,
in the digital age, as quaintly incomprehensible as mustard cutting), I have
resorted to the next best strategy in my fight against decrepitude: preserving a
inner fiction of youth by ignoring the outward signs of aging. In other words,
I’m putting all my ego eggs into the you’re-as-old-as-you-feel basket.
Although the ratio
of grey to brown has long since tipped decisively in favor of grey, my hair still appears
fairly dark when it’s wet, so as long as I only look in the mirror to comb my
hair immediately after my morning shower, I can ignore the dry reality. Fortunately
I’m quite short-sighted, allowing me to avoid noticing my wrinkles by the
simple expedient of not putting on my glasses until after I’ve combed my hair. Gravity
is taking its inevitable toll on fatty tissues—with which I have become
annoyingly well-endowed—but wearing loose, oversized clothing makes me feel
deliciously petite. Best of all, a summer of extreme walking has proven that
while ballerina fluidity is well beyond my abilities, doddering won’t be a
problem for a few years yet. I’ll never fold myself back into the yogic
pretzels I achieved in my youth, but a sprightly step goes a long way toward
creating an internal illusion of flexibility.
Of course, that’s
all it can be, right? Just an illusion, precariously maintained by avoiding
confrontation with the truth. Maybe so. But in light of my experience last Wednesday,
maybe not.
I was leaving the
library at the end of my volunteer shift when Kelly, who co-ordinates children’s
programs, flagged me down. She stood just outside the double doors of the
auditorium, her gorgeous cascade of dark curls topped by a tilting cluster of gaudy
paper flowers. Her cheekbones were flushed with exertion. Behind her, a throng
of pint-sized party-ers dashed, screaming and squealing, around the knees of a
few supervising adults. Just looking into that whirlwind of activity was
exhausting.
“Hey Brenda!” Kelly
shouted over the soprano babble of over-stimulated toddlers. “Are you busy?”
Having just spent
half an hour complaining to the library technicians manning the information
desk about the dearth of activities lined up for my afternoon amusement, I
could hardly claim to be otherwise engaged. “No-o-o,” I drew out the syllable
with a long, hesitant vowel. “Do you need some help?”
“Fantastic!” Kelly
turned and pointed to the far side of the auditorium where a line-up of
carnival style games had been assembled. “Could you take over for Colleen? Just
for an hour or so? Please?”
Well of course I could, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
One of the primary ploys in maintaining the illusion of youth is never placing
oneself in a position of comparison. But taking note of Kelly’s slightly
desperate expression, I mastered my reluctance. “Sure,” I said weakly and waded
into the swirling melee of energetic urchins.
Colleen made no
attempt to hide her relief as she handed me a plastic pail full of Ping-Pong
balls. She thanked me profusely, then pointed to an arrangement of red and blue
plastic tumblers glued to a cardboard platform. “Each kid,” she instructed me, “picks
a color, then gets three chances to toss a ball into a cup of the same color. Prizes
are in the bowl.” She indicated a container on the floor at her feet filled with
brightly colored somethings. “Make the kids pick up the balls, or your back
will be killing you,” she warned as she waved good-bye.
To the left of my pitch,
one of the library pages was supervising a game involving the dropping of old-fashioned
wooden clothespins into milk bottles. To the right, a game played by tossing
rolls of bathroom tissue through a toilet seat mounted vertically on stand was
in progress. Ahead of me, stretched a line of waist-high contestants, eager to
try their pudgy hands at tossing Ping-Pong balls into colored tumblers.
“Step right up, ladies and gentleman,” I began
my patter, then stopped to duck as a poorly aimed roll bounced off the edge of
the toilet seat and came flying directly at my head, eliciting a shower of
giggles from my audience. “Three balls! Three chances to win! Who wants to try?”
“Me! Me! Me!” A frilly pink rug-rat at the
front of the line waved her sparkly wand in the air.
I handed her a Ping-Pong
ball and asked her to pick red or blue.
“Wed” she said
decisively and made her first throw in a clumsy but exuberant overhand that
caused the ball to bounce off the floor, sail over the tumblers, ricochet off
the back wall, and hit me on the hip before it rolled off toward the center of the room. Completely forgetting Colleen’s advice, I scrambled
to pick up the ball before some unwary child stepped on it and turned an ankle.
The girl’s next throw, delivered in an identical manner, took a freakish bounce
off the back wall and miraculously landed in a red tumbler. “Yay!” she squealed,
waving her wand with eye-endangering enthusiasm as she grabbed a prize from the
bowl.
And so it began. I
squatted to get on eye-level with diminutive contestants as I explained the
rules. I chased errant Ping-Pong balls around the floor, but soon gave up on even
attempting to dodge flying rolls of toilet paper, much to the amusement of the children
waiting to take their turns. I celebrated with the victors as they chose their
prizes and commiserated with the
defeated, encouraging them to come back later and try again. Which many of them
did. A trio of tiara’d princess wannabes giggled their way through the line
several times to collect a complete set of press on tattoos from the prize bowl.
Another of my regulars was a laconic grade-schooler whose destiny in the major leagues was clearly
foreshadowed by his uncanny ability to pitch his Ping-Pong balls into the same
blue tumbler on every throw. One of the youngest
participants, more interested in chasing than throwing, toddled precariously around
behind the pitch, pouncing on balls that missed the tumblers and returning them
triumphantly to the pail.
Kelly eventually sent
over my relief, but by that time I was infected with the excitement of the
party and waived him away.
Children normally view
the elderly with a kind of detached politeness, as though we are too frail, or
possibly too boring, to play with. But during my two hour stint as a Carney, the
kids treated me like the best part of the game. They taught me all the
names of the trading cards in the prize bowl (now forgotten) and we performed a
(not very scientific) experiment to prove the superiority of the underhand toss,
during the course of which we identified a miraculously lucky Ping-Pong ball
that dropped into a cup with amazing frequency (although not every successful
toss resulted in a prize, since the ball appeared to be colorblind). They
talked to me the way they talked to each other, proudly showing off art
projects, buttons and prizes, inviting me to admire their sparkly dresses or spiffy
running shoes. I felt accepted, like an over-sized member of the gang.
Then suddenly, the
party was over. Children coagulated around their parents and drifted toward the
auditorium doors, chattering and laughing like parakeets as they moved on to
the afternoon’s next adventure. I stood alone at my pitch, clutching the pail
of Ping-Pong balls, feeling strangely elated. I thought: Okay, so I’m grey. And flabby.
And by now, my wrinkles probably have their own wrinkles. But when it comes to playing
with a bunch of kids, by golly, I can still cut the mustard.
As the last of the children
left the room, the library staff hauled out big, black garbage bags and began
the herculean task of returning the auditorium to a pristine state. I watched
them for a few seconds, then followed my playmates out the door. Cleanup is
what grownups do.
*
*Those
of you born in the final decades of the last century will be unfamiliar with
the term LP. It stands for long-playing
microgroove recording, an antique form of analog sound reproduction that
fell into disuse in the late 1970’s when cassette tapes, which produced better quality
sound, became universally available. A cassette tape is a … oh forget it.
