He was in the
supermarket deliberating by the bread. ‘Excuse me, love,’ he said noticing me.
Must have thought I looked friendly enough. 'Can you help me? How good are your
eyes?’ Maybe he considered my conspicuous specs give me supersight, rather than
indicating the reverse. He passed a printed list and I removed my glasses to
apply my 20/20 close range vision to the small print - I do actually have
perfect visual acuity if the target is within about 10 centimetres.
'The doctor told me
I’ve gotta lose a bit of weight,' he confided ruefully, 'and it’s killing me.'
He looked okay to
me. Tall, comfortable, easy on the eye, bit of a rocker style about him, full
head of salt and pepper hair combed back, gold hoop earring in each ear; cool
bomber jacket; blue jeans. Maybe carrying a bit too much weight around his
middle.
'Yeah? Maybe I can help,'
I said. 'I’m a bit of a diet expert. I've had diabetes for nearly 40 years.' Not normally
something I'd share with random shoppers in supermarkets but the occasion
seemed apt. And yes, I know that doesn't make me an expert but I've got a bit of insider insight into the effects of carbs on the system.
I read the printed
list he gave me, scanned the shelves and suggested that the Helga’s whole meal
grain bread might suit his dietary requirements. (Not affiliated with the
Helga's company in any way, in case you're interested. I'm more your home
brand.)
'The doc, she says
I’ve gotta have porridge instead of my usual five Weet-Bix,' he told me.
'Reckons I’m eating too much carb.'
I did a quick mental
calculation. Five Weet-Bix. That’ s easily 50 grams of carb before you add the
milk and sugar.
'Yeah, that’s lots
of carb. She's right. Try porridge with a few sultanas,' I suggest. 'Forget the
honey, you’ll get used to the taste of porridge and gradually find it's good on its own.' He looked a bit
sceptical and picked up the bread.
'Had a bit of a scare recently,' he continued. 'Thought I'd had
a heart attack. Turned out I'd pulled a muscle at training.' I study him a bit
more closely. Football? Probably.
He seemed to want to
talk and I was okay with that. He told me the heart scare led to further tests.
Despite his blood work being normal, a calcium test had revealed he was at
greater than average risk of heart disease. He didn't want to take statins to
reduce his cholesterol, hence the diet.
Gary - I asked his name - said he'd had another
health scare. He'd had his prostate removed two years earlier when he was 50. Seemed appropriate to tell him husband
Al had also had a radical prostatectomy two years ago. Perhaps that opened the
flood gates. After I'd agreed that you've got to continue the pelvic floor
exercises to keep incontinence at bay, Gary got on to Viagra. By this stage, I
was poker-face riveted.
Gary wasn't a fan of
Viagra; joked about how he didn't appreciate checking his watch at dinner and
asking his wife of 25 years if she'd be up for it in an hour. Said it was a bit
of a downer, if I knew what he meant.
'If we can't just share a look and go, how about it, what's the point?'
he asked. Luckily, he and his lovely wife had been able to re-establish normal
relations. As some kind of proof, maybe, he got his wallet out and showed me a
picture of her with their son at his son's graduation.
What really got to
Gary was the fact that some men are so fixated on their virility, their perceived masculinity, that they'll avoid
having surgery at all costs, even if it means death. 'I mean, what's the point of an
erection in a coffin?' he asked. Beats me.
Therapists have all
sorts of theories about oversharing. Perhaps I should have shut Gary down at
whole grains and walked away. Perhaps his revelations were inappropriate. Perhaps I was
interested and it was freezing outside and I didn't mind dallying. Or perhaps
my new rocker friend had met a soul-mate in aisle 7.
