Three Times the Speed!

 

It is said that Alzheimer’s patients age three or four times faster than other people. So the average lifespan of Alzheimer’s patients is about ten years.

 Wait a minute! My mother was diagnosed eleven years ago. If she had aged three times faster, she would be one hundred and two years old today. And if she had aged four times faster, she would be one hundred and thirteen years old today. It would have been something on the level of a world record.

 My mother doesn’t have any serious illness except Alzheimer’s disease. She looks her age. She doesn’t look over one hundred years old.

 Alzheimer’s disease is a mysterious disease. People say many things about it, but some of them are not true.

Picture by FUTO

Debate

 First of all, I don’t like debate very much. Even when you beat a competitor in a debate, he or she does not change his or her mind. In my opinion, he or she simply develops hard feelings after the debate. I am convinced that no one except politicians enjoys debating.

 When I was a graduate student at university, a professor from the debate club of a famous university would allow us to debate in his class. One day, I let slip that I was paying a subscription fee to NHK.

 NHK is the Japanese public TV broadcaster and insists that, if you have a TV in Japan, you must pay the subscription fee. But it is a somewhat controversial topic. Some people argue that there is no reason to pay NHK.

 In those days, I lived by myself and was not well off. But I still paid the NHK subscription fee every month. When my professor heard this, he scolded me and gave me homework: “When the NHK collector next comes to your house, you must debate him or her. You have to turn him or her away at the door.”

I don’t know whether the professor was for or against paying the subscription fee to NHK. I suspect he just thought that I should not miss the opportunity to debate with a mature adult.

 I studied the arguments regarding paying the subscription fee to NHK. It was an interesting topic. I prepared hard for it. Then I waited for the NHK collector to show up.

 The NHK collector finally came to my house. He was a middle-aged man. I opened the door. Then I took a deep breath so that I could begin debating him. But, as I inhaled, I realized the battle was lost. He had terrible breath. Debate? No way! I gave him the money and let him go.

 I had read many books and simulated many arguments, but his bad breath blew all my preparations away: No one could debate without breathing.

 Now that I am a middle-aged man, I really should take care of my breath.

 

Picture by Lightsource