Button It!  It’s Not Easy As It Sounds

I remember reading about a matador preparing to enter the bullring to begin the “dance of life and death” referred to in Hemingway’s stories as the “moment of truth.”  The matador may have an aide who ritualistically helps him dress; tight white pants with a lime-green stripe, shirt with ruffled collar, jacket, wide brimmed black hat, blood red sash–all ceremoniously donned while the bullfighter prepares to enter the arena as the song/prayer Virgen de la Macarena plays.  This must take considerable time as everything has to be just so.  I imagine the bull consumes much less time in getting ready. If the matador is unfortunate enough to have Parkinson’s, it would take much much longer.

Whenever I plan to enter a social ring, a dinner engagement, an invitation to play bridge, a trip to a movie, I must plan for extra time to dress.  If we have such an event to attend, and I yell to Polley “I just got out of the shower!” she knows she has time to mow the lawn, read War and Peace, and complete the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle.

Tying my shoes requires extreme concentration.  My hands are actually boxing gloves, and my wrapping and tying of the laces reminds me of the first time as a young lad I learned to tie my shoes, eyes squinting, tongue projecting out of a corner of my mouth, brain totally focused on the task at hand.  With the Parkinson’s I have returned to that boyhood challenge. There have been occasions when I have forgotten to put my pants on first…I stare disbelievingly at my stupidity. The shoes have to come off, and I have to repeat the ritual amidst much vocalizing of my displeasure through flowery invective.

But far more challenging than the tying of my shoes is the task of buttoning something. Anything. Putting on my shirt requires enormous effort and time. (I am thrilled that button down collars are not the rage)  It is the buttons. Fairly often I misjudge the alignment of the top button, and after buttoning the entire shirt I look down to discover that. One side of my shirt is longer than the other.  When that happens I really howl at the moon.  The curses flow like water over Niagara Falls. That also adds an hour or so and Polley knows from the language emanating from upstairs that she has time to make a turkey pot pie from scratch (including hunting the turkey) and also watch the movie War and Peace…the Russian version. The curses flow and increase in length and include more similes unfit for polite society as my fingers fumble with guiding a button through a narrow slit.   How could any item, so miniscule and yet so functional have a history of being mostly ornamental?

Archeologists have discovered buttons from the Indus Valley dating back to 2,000 B.C.  Their function seems to have been more ornamental, and people exchanged buttons in lieu of currency. Buttons became faddish and fancy.  As time passed, buttons became more functional. During the Napoleonic Wars when people fought to the death while observing strict dress codes, soldiers in most armies were covered with buttons.  Since paymasters were notoriously late in compensating the troops for their service, a soldier might pluck a button off his uniform to pay for a pint of ale or for the chance to unfasten the buttons of a fine tavern lass.  King Frederick the Great of Prussia, disgusted with inspecting his troops and learning of their tendency to wipe their noses on their sleeves, ordered buttons to be sewn onto all the sleeves.  While I am certain that a few men could not shake the sleeve smearing habit and march toward the enemy with red scarred and scraped noses, Freddy was probably proud as he watched most of his men enter the fray and charge the cannons (and being blown to pieces) with clean sleeves..

Buttons have also become topics for heated debates.  One of the great questions mystifying humanity is why women have buttons on the left side and men have buttons on the right side.  Some chauvinists argue that the woman’s choice of button placement is another indication of female “contrariness,” and “dissatisfaction.”  Personally I think the burning of bras to be a more effective protest.  The most likely answer to this burning issue is that most people are right-handed.  Men dressed themselves, unless they lived in Downton Abbey, while women were dressed by ladies-in-waiting, also more likely to be right-handed. Hence, for the maid’s convenience, buttons were sewn on the Mylady’s left side.

The fly on men’s pants was also fastened with buttons.  Not too long after I learned of my onset of Parkinson’s, in a moment of irrationality, I wore such a pair of pants on a trip to Colorado.  Somewhere in Illinois we decided to eschew the rest rooms of an Interstate rest area and wait until the next rest area 37 miles away.  This is a prototype of the challenges that we invent for ourselves on long trips.  Can we make it to the next gas station?  Can we hold off lunch until Indiana?   The rest room challenge is especially daunting because of the immense consequences.  On this trip we were confident that the Rest Area would be there.  What we did not forsee was the ninety minute traffic jam caused by highway construction.   By the time the Rest Area with the Rest Rooms appeared on the horizon like an oasis to one dying of thirst, my legs were  crossed, my eyes were crossed, my fingers were crossed.  Obviously other interstate travelers had embraced the same challenge because we had to park a half a mile from the Rest Rooms.   It is difficult to run in a zig-zag pattern with one’s knees together.  Once inside we realized we had failed to beat the tour buses which had already unloaded the two hundred members of the Brazilian Male Dance Team.  I waited behind a line of yellow, blue-striped, forest green shirts and prayed.  It was the first time in recorded history that the line outside the Men’s Room was longer than the line outside the Women’s Room. When my turn came, oh mercy, there were those buttons on the fly. As my fingers maddeningly fumbled with those nasty orbs of plastic, I recited the last words of the mentally unstable Colonel Walter E. Kurtz from the movie Apocalypse Now…..”The horror…the horror….”

If you have Parkinson’s and, like me, struggle with buttons, you have options.  I have purchased fly fishing shirts which have replaced the buttons with snaps.  Snaps require some digital dexterity, but they are a vast improvement over buttons.  Another option is to move to India.   My daughter Meredith married Ronak whose parents were originally  from India.  Afternoon wedding:  American, suits, ties, and, yes, buttons.  Morning wedding:  Indian.  As the father of the bride I wore an outfit of Indian style, a kurta, I believe.  A kurta is a wonderful, comfortable, and elegant article of clothing, soft silky pants with an equally soft and silky shirt that pulls over one’s head.  Unfettered by buttons I could have “danced the night electric,” as Amanda Wingfield might say, and that is a lot because at an Indian wedding there is a great deal of communal and joyous dancing.  I did some research on my future transplanting to the sub-continent, but, alas, they have buttons in India as well…just not as many.

Like so many problems I cope with, I blame my parents for not being independently wealthy.  Thus my inheritance would enable me to, like the Earl of Grantham, hire Bates to button my buttons.  Unfortunately I am left with dressing myself.  Like the matador I take some time to prepare, not out of vanity, but because of the damn buttons.  I would much rather Zip It!