Losing Marbles

No, to be honest.

Let me explain. Having recently played (and won, mind you, but that's not important, impressive) a game of Trivial Pursuit with a group of people I am at least ten (and even twenty) years older than, I can tell you that nothing this side of aching and paining your way to get out of bed at four in the morning to pee will make you feel older. Cries of "how did you know that?" accompanied by looks of awe (or were they disdain? pity, even? my eyes are getting bad) abounded as I answered rather simple questions about things that occurred well within my conscious lifetime, if not anybody else's.

Now you might think I've lost my marbles because I was playing a board game with twentysomethings (who are probably too young to remember the TV show thirtysomething--a "glitzy" show, as I recall a priest calling it, mid-sermon!), but if you do, and if you are under the age of 80, I challenge you to tell me the first thing about the game of marbles. Considering this

is perhaps the latest known picture of anybody playing marbles (oh I pray that I receive venomous hate mail from the Studebaker-driving, camphor oil-swilling, dungaree-wearing masses who keep the playing of marbles alive like so many Civil War re-enactors--then I'll really know my blog has reached the crannies of the internet [come to think of it, don't you gotta believe that most Civil War re-enactors probably play marbles in their less bellicose moments?]), I think it's time to consider and summarily lose the term (and all its variants) "losing one's marbles."

Now if you can make a case for me that the metaphor has now become the literal, in other words, that we use the term marbles for sanity outside of the "lost one's" usage, then I'll say okay, the phrase stays. But I never hear anyone saying, "that guy's got all his marbles; I'll trust him with my daughter," so I'm not buying it. Simply put, marbles are archaic; ergo, the phrase is, so let's ditch it for something more up-to-date, something "gliztier."

Some suggestions:

• his Segway's got a flat
• he's playing with a broken joystick
• his cellphone's on permanent vibrate
• his SUV done rolled over one time too many
• his Depends are saturated
• he's still looking for the "You Are Here" sign in the marble museum
• he's got nothing but Michael Bolton on his iPod
• he's a vegan at a drive-thru window
• he's waiting for chewable Viagra
• he's voting for Palin

There you have it: ten new phrases to go crazy over. And if you still have marbles to lose, go here.

Doug Sahm-Crazy, Crazy Baby