Well you would be wouldn’t you if you came out of the restaurant and your car had been towed away. Especially if you’d parked on a single yellow line and thought it was okay to do so. This is what happened to Christopher Biggins in Shoreditch. He thought his brand new £35,000 Mercedes had been stolen and called the police. Imagine his shock when he learned they had towed it away!
In South Carolina a man was so mad he beat another with his own prosthetic leg! This strange story via The Huffington Post explained how the protagonist knocked Jeffrey Johnson from his moped as he rode along Myrtle Beach. Johnson’s prosthetic leg came off in the feud and Joel Parrish who had already kicked Johnson, picked it up and continued to hit him with it. Now that’s not the proper use of a prosthetic leg!
We don’t know how old Parrish is so we’re not sure if he’s old enough to qualify as a Grumpy Old Man. And of course we aren’t assuming that Christopher Biggins is either. A missing brand new car would be enough to rile any of us!
The famous TV series which featured Grumpy Old Men and women highlighted our intolerance of things as we get older. The earlier TV version of a grumpy pair of old men is from the Muppets. Here is a video of them in action.
We wondered why this occurs and discovered there really is a Grumpy Old Man condition.
Irritable Male Syndrome or the Male Menopause
Apparently it’s not necessarily their fault – though we’re not excusing Parrish. As men get older many suffer with Irritable Male Syndrome which has sometimes been named as the Male Menopause or Andropause.
Apparently it can come into affect any time between the ages of 40 and 60 and is due to a drop in testosterone levels. These start to drop after the age of 30 by about 1% every year, but not every male suffers from IMS.
Of course there are some external conditions that cause testosterone levels to fall too. These include poor diet, some medicines, illness, drinking too much alcohol, insomnia, lack of sex, our old friend stress and surgery.
Here’s a video explanation of it from Dr.Larry Emdur a hospital specialist on Andropause – the male menopause.
According to Wikipedia the common symptoms are:
· Anger and social withdrawal
· Irritability
· Hypersensitivity
· Anxiety
· Hot Flashes
· Mood swings
· Depression
· Lack of libido
· Back and head aches
Another report in the Yucatan Times highlights other symptoms such as increased body fat and loss of body hair, as well as decreased muscle mass and several other intimate problems. The article refers to the loss of testosterone as a hormone deficiency which is sometimes a more palatable diagnosis. Many of the symptoms can be treated so you can say goodbye to that Grumpy Old Man you might have become.